2023 – CHW
Flowers on Quercus semecarpifolia.


A tedious day getting to grips with the proofing of the 2022 Burncoose Nurseries mail order catalogue. It normally takes about eight days in all. Meanwhile the G7 are having dinner at the Eden Project. Quite a long drive with the roads clogged so I assume helicopters but have heard nothing yet tonight? Another day of sea mist and drizzle.Our landscape team finally finished working at 6.30pm on Wednesday at the Carbis Bay Hotel. A project which they started in January! Boris and Carrie arrived just before that. Working in a maximum security site with machine guns, snipers and hundreds of troops/police was a good experience which they enjoyed. The bay ringed with military vessels and at least one carrier visible offshore. A once in a lifetime event putting Cornwall on the map – assuming nothing goes wrong in the next three days!Two granite gateposts destined for the gateway to the new graveyard extension at St Michaels church. Not yet consecrated by the bishop who has been asked.


Annoyingly an old Rhododendron decorum has blown over near Donkey Shoe in the northerly winds last Saturday.
The wild flower book has been located.Lotus corniculatus or ‘bacon and eggs’ is coming up in the lawn exactly where the giant mushroom circle grew last September. It grows to 35cm as you can see but not when mown!
This may well be Cornus kousa ‘Madame Butterfly’ on Hovel Cart Road. A spectacular show today with variably curled bracts. The planting records give no clue.
This is what Tom Hudson wrote to me:
M. floribunda is all over SE Asia, Yunnan, Nth Vietnam, Laos, Burma, etc.
M. floribunda var. tonkinensis was named for the south eastern part of the range in Vietnam but I cant find out who published this combination.
Growing plants from both locations I cant tell the difference so in the meantime I have binned the var tonkinensis and call them all floribunda.
To add to the confusion Chevalier published Michelia tonkinensis from Vietnam but that has proved to be a synonym of M. balansae.
Even more chaos as Dandy published Michelia floribunda var tonkingensis which has since been sunk into floribunda!!
Your Magnolia DJHV 06105 is in the Crug catalogue as Magnolia foveolata. (Sect. Michelia) which it isnt.
From your images it is definitely Sect. Manglietia as you suspected with those large terminal flower buds opening early summer.
Will be fun to see what pops out.
i have a few Mangliets going to fire up for the 1st time in the next few weeks, they all got a bit overexcited and steamed up from last summer.
A catch up on the rhododendrons still out as the season ends. Starting above the old Orchid House Nursery bed.An Alan Clarke collection of what I assume is Rhododendron maddenii with the most enormous scented flowers. Definitely one for Asia to concentrate on with cuttings soon. Possibly worth a name in its own right.
Sadly I have missed the first flowering of Styrax shiranus on Burns Bank. The one by Charlie Michaels Nursery is struggling in full sun and little growth.
The Schizophragma hydrangeoides on the top wall is better than I have ever seen it although the flowers are just going over. There used to be a huge plant 50 years ago on The Rabbit Warren.
2015 – CHW
More magnolias are emerging as we move into summer.
Magnolia obovata ‘Pink Flush’ (below Slip Rail)
We have missed the first flower but this looks much better than the old Magnolia obovata above the Auklandii Garden which everyone misses. This one is clearly flowering at a very young age.

Magnolia virginiana ‘Satellite’A proper evergreen with a large flower unlike our Magnolia virginiana by George’s Hut. The original virginiana was crushed in the 1990 hurricane. Of the several forms of virginiana we now have this is the best.

Magnolia sieboldii ‘Colossus’ (above Crinodendron Hedge)Flowering later than all the other Magnolia sieboldiis looked at over the last two weeks but is it really that different or colossal? Not in my opinion anyway. We had both sorts together in flower on the Chelsea stand all labelled as Magnolia sieboldii (plain) and no one noticed – not even the judges – which rather proves my point.