2023 – CHW
Back to Max Kendry’s garden in the lovely village of Loxley in preparation for the third day of the first Ashes Test Match at Edgbaston.
Euonymus japonicus ‘Aureus’ in full flower.


2022 – CHW
A garden tour on behalf of the National Garden Scheme charity (eleven paid but only six turned up).
Sad news that Lawrence Banks of Hergest Croft garden has just died. One of the RHS titans of the woody plant world and a family friend for many generations of gardening.
Rhododendron ‘Crosswater Belle’ is tender with us and temperamental. Better pink colouration in sun than in shade. Our clump needs more shelter from cold winds.


First trip to Hook Norton Brewery for 16 months. Zoom board meetings replaced by reality. Could it be profitability in May after 13 months of severe losses?Another clump of Rhododendron nuttallii.
Flowers on Tilia maxiczowicziana. Yellowish with a faint red flash on the bud and on the stamens. Not seen before and attractive by Tilia standards.
The Caerhays charity fete opens with a little drizzle but clears up. Not beach weather and some may have stayed at home fearing rain but circa 2,000 people did not. A very relaxed family day out with excellent musical and choral performances. A huge effort which paid off.The Royal Marines band.
The styrax tour and lecture day with only five attendees so we ended up doing a three hour garden tour looking at styrax and stewartia, rather than bothering with a long lecture.Stewartia pteropetiolata is only just coming out, with loads of flowers to come.
To Burncoose for the annual meeting with our main Dutch supplier. A low flower on a 25 year old Aesculus wilsonii full out in the sun.
In the nursery again photographing new plants for the 2017 catalogue:Deutzia pulchra has long trailing flowers and will be a useful addition to the smaller growing deutzia range.
Paparer orientale ‘Royal Wedding’, like all of these orientale poppies, is a short lived flop! Why they currently are so popular I cannot understand. A breath of wind or even a decent shower and the flowers are irreparably buggered!You can see I got bored with the photography!
2015 – CHW
The tiny frogs are still on the march to wherever but have now spread the whole way along the drive from the Back Yard to the Fernery. They are more spread out but still in huge numbers. Strange that birds are not gobbling them up but there is no sign of this. Perhaps they are poisonous? The whole lot are however moving up into the gardens and away from water.
More cornus today:Cornus kousa ‘Doubloon’ outside the Lawn is looking wonderful but I see no signs of any doubling in the flowers as the US book suggests but with no picture. Not far off Cornus ‘Eddies White Wonder’ perhaps but I have yet to catch up with this one.


The old plants of Cornus kousa below the Fernery are plastered in flowers. The original takes a bit of beating really.



Cornus kousa ‘Miss Petty’ is nice enough. Looks as though the bracts will get pinker splashes later.


Is this Cornus kousa ‘Samaritan’? Probably as its habit is very different to ‘Wolf Eyes’. But, since no flowers, is it florida ‘Daybreak’. I think not. How you can produce a definitive reference book with such poor and inadequate pictures beggars belief.


That even with you some Rhodos are tender…waht shall we say? of course, alle Indonesians like zoelleri, mcgregori or so are. Luckily breeding has made progress, ‘Taurus’ and that like are flourishing here too.
To Araucaria I have to comment that I am convinced that this is not bidwillii, this has a strong tendency to arrange leafletts on lower branches two-ranked, they are furthermore broader near the middle of the blade and often strongly varying in length, becoming much smaller towards the end of a growing-phase.
The brighter colour and relative(!) small fruits are further indicative of Araucaria angustifolia. I admitt that Araucaria is variable, when one reads that angustifolia leaves are softer than araucana, so this is not the case of leaves grown during summer in sun.