Four different colours in this clump of Azalea indicum which is making a decent impact in mid-June.

Then for a full review of the Styrax as this is perhaps the best week to see them all in flower. However, as I had realised some while ago, this year most of the Styrax species are having a year off flowering. They overdid it for the last two years and produced oceans of seed. Did they overdo it or was it the drought that has held them back? Perhaps they disliked the mild wet winter? I do not remember a year when they have flowered so sparsely.

I was pushed to find any flowers at all on Styrax wuyuanensis.

Styrax faberi was not out yet but it isn’t going to be much of a show.

Styrax hemsleyanus lost a lot of leaf prematurely in the drought and looked sick. It was late into leaf and I had feared that we might lost it but here we are restored to full health. Not that much flower but I have never sen this species overloaded.

Styrax japonicus ‘Fargesii’ had only this one small group of flowers. Last year it was plastered.

Styrax formosanus was already over with very few fallen flowers on the ground and Styrax formosanus var. hayatianus was not worth photographing (although the small tree in Kennel Close was better as we saw earlier).

Styrax serrulatus was not out yet but, again, hardly any flowers. Styrax tonkinensis is not yet of flowering size despite being 12-15 feet tall.

First flowers on the pink form of Rhododendron ‘Polar Bear’. How much better this clump looks than it did a year ago.

Philadelphus pekinensis gets better each year. These 3 bushes are only 7 years old.

2023 – CHW

No rain at all for 5 ½ weeks. Grass cutting has begun this week and the first rhododendron drought casualty is quickly obvious.

Cornus walteri just out in flower.

Styrax japonicus ‘Pink Chimes’ suddenly full out. Last Sunday it was just bud.

Only 2 flowers on Meliosma oldhamii despite last years heat but attractive secondary new growth as well.

Rhododendron maddenii has wilted in the heat before it even came out properly.

Rhododendron sanguineum by George’s Hut.

2022 – CHW

A morning with Cressy and Asia identifying and locating key plants to propagate. We are two to three weeks away from starting rhododendron cuttings and there was quite a list of stock plants to find on their lists.

The ewes have gone to the farm for shearing and the lambs are looking bothered in their absence.

Euonymus morrisonensis in full flower. Starting to become a large spreading shrub.

A newly planted Viburnum wrightii in flower.

Rhododendron ‘Royal Finis Pink’ – 2017 planted.

Lots of clumps of youngish Rhododendron decorum now going over.

Hydrangea ‘Fireworks’ just out at Georges Hut.

Rhododendron stamineum nearly over by Georges Hut. The older plants in the Main Quarry in full sun were over a fortnight ago.

Rhododendron ‘Pink Polar Bear’ just out.

About eight buds on Manglietia/Magnolia sapaensis. This one nearly out and well ahead of the others. One seedpod last year but Asia not yet sure if anything has germinated.

2021 – CHW
The G7 leaders leave St Ives this evening. The owner of the Carbis Bay Hotel, for whom our landscape team have been working since mid-January, promises a picture of Boris and Biden on our hastily laid new lawn or amid our landscaping works. We will see if this materialises. The sight on TV of Boris swimming in the bay by the hotel was a bit ‘Mr Blobby’ and really was not suitable for the 2022 Burncoose catalogue which I have been proofing for the last four days!Cornus kousa chinensis ‘Wisley Queen’ with flower bracts still creamy in the shade and now with red spots in full sun.

Beautiful foliage on Fagus sylvatica ‘Aurea Pendula’.

Hydrangea sargentiana ‘Goldrush’ now with flower buds appearing and the inevitable slug damage sargentiana always suffers.

Hydrangea robusta ‘Titania’ from Vietnam also only planted last autumn. Attractive foliage.

The Parastyrax species nova collected by Crûg Farm continues to grow very quickly. Now in its third year.

The new growth is rather late on Corylopsis ‘Spring Purple’ but none the worse for that!

A decent sized Magnolia wilsonii has failed to leaf up and died. I fear caught by the cold in February with the sap rising as have a few other things – most notably the Magnolia dawsoniana outside the front gates which I see is struggling out some new shoots with dieback from the tips of the branches.

Styrax japonicus ‘Pendulus’ just coming out.

2020 – CHW
Cornus ‘Norman Hadden’ (Cornus kousa x Cornus capitata) is making a decent tree in Kennel Close and flowering nicely this year. It is growing right beside the C. capitata which makes for an interesting comparison.

Camellia ‘Kitty’ is the first plant you come to coming down the path at the 1970 planting on Burns Bank. Still properly in flower in mid-June! One to remember to take cuttings from in the autumn. I have checked the reference books and our old plan is correct in the name of this plant.

Catalpa bungei Duclouxii Group (as we are now told is the proper name and not Catalpa fargesii f. duclouxii) is now full out and very splendid. Not as dark in colour as the one at Ventnor above the tropical house.

Euonymus morrisonensis flowering better than I have ever seen before.

This is our other original Catalpa duclouxii. The old plant died but two root suckers are now 30ft tall and flowering at the tops although they are hard to see beside a taller Nothofagus. From a distance the flowers seem paler than the younger plant above.

I discover another nearly pure white deciduous azalea below the Kalopanax septemlobus but this one has a faint yellow flash which is not present in every individual flower. ‘White Swan’ or ‘White Lights’ is what Hillier’s implies.

Idesia polycarpa is full out and swarming with bees as you can see. Looking at the flowers and remembering that there were a few fruits last autumn I think that this is a dioecious form of this tree which not all are. The other trees are either too young to flower or too far away for pollination to have occurred if this was simply a female tree.

The original clump of Rhododendron griersonianum is flowering more profusely than usual and easily the best rhododendron show in the garden today.

A few flowers still (as usual) on Camellia ‘Mathotiana Rubra’ in mid-June.

The whole garden has perked up with the recent rain after a drought of six to eight weeks with only a single day of light rain. That is the end of hand watering young plants for a bit.

Another flower or two on a separate Rhododendron yuefengense. This one is a darker pink with nice pink striping on the outside of the trumpets.

A branch snapped out of the yellow Magnolia campbellii. The Quercus x turneri ‘Pseudoturneri’ has also blown over in the gales which came with the welcome rain. One of its main roots had rotted. No point in pollarding and righting it but this is a place for a good windbreak tree (as was the oak).

Three Rhododendron nuttallii are out now but one is a bit different and more like the Rhododendron sinonuttallii which once grew in the Burncoose conservatory. Despite its strong smell it had creamy yellow flowers fading to white as on one of the plants here. I thought it might instead be Rhododendron excellans but the pocket rhodo handbook says most Rh. excellans are in fact nuttallii. We will see as we planted three excellans in March by Georges Hut. I need now to hunt out Rhododendron megacalyx.

Buddleia loricata, mountain sage, just coming out by the shop. It hardly looks like a buddleia! I guessed Olearia at first. Another species to propagate for the catalogue which I suspect butterflies will like.

The successful hunt for the pure white deciduous azaleas of late caused me to notice a good clump of Rhododendron viscosum which are nearly pure white unlike the clump in Old Park. This lot are by the shop and generally go unnoticed.

2019 – CHW
A horrid NE wind and quite a bit of twig debris on the paths but, at least, more good heavy rain. Up to the Rookery to inspect this year’s new planting there for the second time recently. Quite sizeable branch debris here in the teeth of the wind.

Probably too cold and stupid a place to have put Merrilliopanax alpinus unless something has eaten the emerging leaves? Perhaps drought too but it is 85% dead. I think we have another in the frames to try out next spring somewhere rather better.

Magnolia sinensis x sieboldii ‘Jersey Belle’ with its first smallish flower. This is a good hybrid which we grow elsewhere here and is occasionally offered on the Burncoose website.

A good Melliodendron xylocarpum making headway unlike most of the others.

First flower on Illicium philippinense and the bronze new growth is excellent.

Cotoneaster fangianus just about to flower with light green rounded leaves on arching stems.

Euonymus wilsonii now in full flower and rather striking for a euonymus.

The new laurel hedge protecting the Rookery from salt laden westerly gales was planted this spring. Some drought casualties as it only went in the ground in late March.

The hedge of Ilex perado ssp. platyphylla on the other side of the same path is already doing its job about eight years on from planting.

The extended Rookery nursery bed pleasantly weed-free for this time of the year and with a good crop of new growth on scores of rhododendrons.

2018 – CHW
Away at a board meeting at Belvoir Castle. Our latest plant supply is now happily planted by the old monastic lakes at Croxton Park and the hydrangeas and gunnera are settling in nicely but it is still very dry in Rutland!Meanwhile Jaimie and his team have been busy at home.They have trimmed the elm regrowth by the now restored Nash arch on the Battery Walk.

Look at the views over Porthluney Beach from here.

The landscape trees planted in the Trevanion deer park above the beach are doing well.

First cut of the grass on the banks outside the front door.

Buddleia colvillei just out by the regular bonfire.

2017 – CHW
I had nearly missed the Styrax wilsonii still in the greenhouse too. The smallest flowers of all the species which we so far know here. We planted two others out but they are currently lost in the tall vegetation and we will not now complete this year’s planting plans until after the first cut. I cannot remember exactly where we put them.

I got a strange email from overseas after Chelsea asking if we had a plant which was a cross between an eriobotrya and rhaphiolepis. I said I had heard of it but that I had not seen it. Then I find a plant in the frames for planting out next year! Asia will need to tell me where it came from? It is called x Rhaphiobotrya ‘Coppertone’ which I suppose assumes it is a cross between Eriobotrya deflexa and Rhaphiolepis (perhaps) umbellata. I have missed the flower which was light pink and rhaphiolepis like but the leaves look more like a gordonia to me? So does the habit which seems to turn in on itself. Like all bigeneric crosses in the plant world it is rather odd and ugly. Or in the animal world come to that (eg labradoodles for starters).

Some of the ancient Azalea indica clump varieties in the Auklandii Garden are over, some out now and some still to show. Today we have red, pink-large single flowers and pink-smaller flowers. Quite a mixed large clump as you can see.