2025 – CHW

Hollyhocks in Sir William Caw’s garden.

My decade old gift of Corus capitata is about to produce a bumper crop of fruit later in the autumn.

Despite the heatwave a bad case of slugs at Sir William’s.

2024 – CHW
A visit to a now well-known garden near Bembridge.A fine crop of Ipomea.

Sollya heterophylla growing outside and now 15 feet in height with numerous ripening seed pods.

Wollemia nobilis with plenty of female cones forming.

An interesting wild flower in an ungrazed field – Ononis repens (Restharrow).

Secondary flowers on Magnolia ‘Star Wars’.

Massive seed heads on Echium fastuosum.

2023 – CHW
The best bits of Ventnor.Fuchsia excorticata has died with reshooting from the main stem.

What a view of Cordyline, Trachycarpus and Phoenix.

A bit of weeding to do here still!

Nerium oleander perfectly happy outside at Ventnor!

An excellent bit of new planting after ditching the old but why no labels?

Cistus x crispatus ‘Warley Rose’.

The “weeds” have gone from the Olive avenue but then you see the Echium clumps that have flowered and will now die.

Hoheria angustifolia.

Agave salmiana var. crassispina (so the label says if on the right plant) from Mexico in stunning full flower. The best thing by miles in Ventnor this week.

Puya species ‘RH 2961C’ which I think I have seen before.

The amazing Grevillea johnsonii.

Paraserianthes lophantha.

Correa lawrenceana grampiana.

Melaleuca alternifolia.

2022 – CHW

On the 10th July 2020 in this diary I photographed the various forms of Meliosma dilleniifolia and its subspecies to try to work out what the differences were. I ended up concluding that we had either been sold incorrectly named plants originally since most (but not all) of our plants of these subspecies looked the same. Today Jaimie and I visited Tregrehan to examine Tom Hudson’s collection of Meliosma species to try to progress our knowledge. We did and we didn’t! Even more queries and question marks at the end than at the start. In the meantime the IDS website has reclassified many Meliosma species again separating out the former subspecies of the dilleniifolia and making them species in their own right.

We first looked at Araucaria angustifolia from Brazil.

Then, beside it, Araucaria bidwillii (ex Queensland, Australia). The problem for us is that our plant above the greenhouse with the female cones was thought by us to be A. bidwillii when in fact, it is A. angustifolia, a record tree so we are not alone in misnaming it. Merits more research. Even if we are wrong in maturity the trees do not look that different. In immaturity the differences are obvious.

Meliosma pungens grows beside Tom’s car park. I photographed it in flower in early June this year and seed forming today. Tom’s plant came from Burncoose in 1999. It is now renamed as Meliosma yunnanensis (affiliated). Quite why we may discover from the revised and updated IDS website. M. pungens should have at least 10 veins off the midrib which this does not. If it was pure M. yunnanensis it should have more veins on the underside of the leaf!

Tom could not remember the name of this oddity.

This is Maurice Foster’s wild collected Meliosma cuneifolia (MF97137) (a species in its own right now and not a sub species of M. dilleniifolia) planted at Tregrehan in 2001 it is a multi-stemmed shrub to about 15 feet. Tufts of hair around the midrib. Much larger, with much larger leaves, than anything we grow with this name here. It had finished flowering and was setting seed.

Abies nukiangense with blue cones and stripy undersides of the leaves.

This is Tom’s own collection from Yunnan of Meliosma cuneifolia. It too is a multi-stemmed large shrub and has silvery undersides to the leaves. A few now finished flowers high up. Distinctly different from Maurice’s plant so who knows if they are really both M. cuneifolia?

Rhododendron facetum from West Yunnan.

Tom gave us a plant of this Meliosma dumicola (TH 5092) from Vietnam and it is growing away well with us but we previously had no name. Tom’s plant is an erect tree which has grown quickly in 20 years. No flowers as yet but attractive new growth. One of the key characteristics of all Meliosma species is that the leaves have a swollen ‘dog leg’ where the leaf meets the stem as you can clearly see here.

Rhododendron serotinum from Vietnam. Quick growing into a massive tree in only 20 years. Leaf shape unmistakeable at the base.

Tom’s Cornus hongkongensis which has a different habit to ours and larger leaves.

A clump of three Rhodoleia henryi planted in 2005 and already 20-25 feet tall. Setting Corylopsis-like seed pods which do not mature and ripen. The 3 plants are a bit different. Flowers bunched at the ends of the twigs.

Supposedly Rhodoleia parvipetala. This has not flowered for Tom as yet but the flowers are not bunched but all along the stem. This is indeed how ours performed for the first time this year.

This is Rhodoleia championii from Hong Kong. No flowers yet. May be too tender to survive?

Styrax tonkinense in full flower. Perhaps the last of the species to flower. Our plant has yet to flower but we may not have looked at the right time. Tom’s, after only 20 years, is too high up to see properly. Flower panicles like S. hemsleyanus rather than individual flowers from the stem. Amazing bark. 30 or 40 feet or so already.

Itea coreacea with just a few dangling panicles of flowers.

Rhododendron facetum from North Vietnam – much darker than the Yunnan form.

Rhododendron kyawii – another huge growing and self layering species.

Meliosma dentata from Mexico with flowers about to open. Again the dogleg where the leaves join the stem. About as rare a plant as you could imagine but also very dull!

Rhodoleia forrestii which has yet to flower. Similar bark to the other species.

The best thing in the garden today was a gigantic Ternstroemia gymnanthera. Enormous scent.

Egg like buds on the distinctive Magnolia mote.

Another of Maurice Foster’s Hydrangea aspera introductions.

Seed on Camellia yunnanensis.

We saw one more species of Meliosma with gigantic leaves as a large tree. No flowers yet. Labelled M. aff. rigida but this is not correct Tom believes. Is it even a Meliosma?We were then able to show Tom samples of what we have labelled as:-
Meliosma dilleniifolia subspa. cuneifolia
Meliosma dilleniifolia subspa. flexuosa
Meliosma dilleniifolia subspa. tenius (probably all samples were tenius)Whatever their true identity they are small low growing and spreading small shrubs and nothing at all like any of Tom’s species which we looked at today.We also looked at samples of our M. oldhamii, M. veitchiorum and M. alba (beaniana).Clearly Meliosma are a large genus and not just Asiatic in origin. Evergreen and deciduous. Much more for botanists and taxonomists to do here to sort the genus out. They seem to seed regularly and the seed ripens quickly.A return match here next July!

A tip from Tom about avoiding honey fungus in the roots/stumps of older trees. Tom ringbarks trees for felling a year or two before he does. The roots continue to try to feed fluids up the stem but nothing returns. The roots exhaust themselves and the tree dies. The shrivelled roots have far less for honey fungus to attach to.

2021 – CHW
It took 3 ¼ hours and the slow route (due to A30 jams) to get to John Marston’s amazing garden at Upper Gorwell House on the edge of Barnstaple. A trip through Launceston, Hatherley, Bideford etc along the way with multiple tractors and caravans. We saw so much in our three hour visit that it is hard to know where to begin to champion this ‘garden of the year’ to Jaimie and I. John has been posting regular lockdown videos of ‘things’ flowering in his garden so we felt that we knew some of it and had a list of new things to see – which we did!John started the garden in a field in 1979 and, today, it is a standalone fully sheltered and enclosed arboretum containing thousands of rare trees and shrubs many of which John collected himself in China, Mexico and Chile. I have never seen so much achieved in a lifetime’s work with rare trees and shrubs clustered together in semi maturity in their own little microclimates. A must visit garden which is open on Sundays with plenty to see in flower in any month of the year. John’s generosity with cutting material was much appreciated as coveting new things that one has not got is part of all gardeners’ psyche.I cannot wait for my next visit!Out of 220 photographs the following were exceptional today:Hypericum forrestii

Mahonia haematocarpa

Seed on Vallea stipularis.

Maakia hupehensis (chinensis)

Carpinus fangiana with its enormous trailing ‘tassels’.

Zelkova serrata ‘Kiwi Sunset’ which goes on to produce wonderful autumn colour.

Corylus colurna which I turfed out here some years ago as boring. I was quite wrong!

Ligustrum japonicum ‘Texanum’ – dullish but different!

Tripterygium regelii had gone from flowering to seed mode. A huge scrambling shrub which I have twice failed to get going on the top wall here.

Magnolia conifera var. chingii. Ours blew over last winter having finally achieved flowering size.

Lindera reflexa which has failed here.

Quercus liucotrichocarpa

Carmichaelia odorata absolutely full out.

Litsea populifolia which has proved impossible to propagate. We will of course try but who knows if this is the right time of the year to try this?

Grevillea williamsonii

Araucaria angustifolia which again died here in the cold in February.

Aralia cashmeriana in flower. A new recent addition to the Burncoose catalogue but never seen (by me) in flower before.

Lysimachia pendrifolius (spelling may be wrong) – most peculiar!

Lomatia fraseri in full flower 15ft up.

Cathaya argyrophylla needing careful staking.

Orixa japonica and Hydrangea ‘Joseph Banks’.

Deutzia multiradiata in flower.

Escallonia ‘Elnor’ – covered in flower with a dwarfish compact habit.

In all we photographed 100 different plants of which about a third were totally unknown to us or had never been seen as mature specimens. Also about 15 plants which I would have thought were too tender to grow outside (Iochroma australe especially). Gorwell is S/SW facing with thin soil which gets a good baking in the heat of summer especially in his walled gardens.

Much to ponder, look up and research. Quite a few things here to move into more suitable positions. Many common problems – how do you get Cladastris to flower, Emmenopterys also. We must persevere with the Mexican dahlia species which we lost in ‘The Beast’. Maakia are much better trees than we first thought and we need to start again where there is more room.Carmichaelia are well worth trying in the right place – Ventnor had put me off. Vallea stipularis needs a wall or a large deciduous host.

I leave you with a few pictures of exciting plant combinations:

Clethra barbinervis and Stypholobium japonicum ‘Pendula’

Musa basjoo and Romneya coulteri

Clematis x durandii and Acca sellowiana