2022 – CHW

The first day of the Jubilee bank holiday weekend and the weather is set fine. The Trooping the Colour and the flypast over the Queen and the palace was as good as it can be!

Tom Hudson has responded to my short article on Rhodoleia aff. parvipetala written for the Cornwall Garden Society yearbook in 2023 which I had asked him to peer review. This plant flowered here spectacularly for the first time last spring and came from a wild collection in Vietnam by Sue and Bleddyn Wynn-Jones of Crûg Farm.

Here are Tom’s comments and a picture of leaves from his four plants together with pictures of his (supposed) Rhodoleia henryi. It looks identical to our plant of aff. parvipetala as he readily admits!

A few pictures of the Jubilee (bonfire) beacon in Church Town Field at 9.15-9.45. Lighting time was 9.45. ‘Bring your own booze’ as they say at No. 10 lockdown parties but pasties provided. Around 40 cars and 100 people turned up. Not bad for a parish of only 75!

2021 – CHW
Preparing for Rick Stein’s filming this afternoon and identifying what is best in the garden to film.

Enkianthus campanulatus ‘Wallaby’

Azalea kaempferi at its best at Donkey Shoe.

Philadelphus sericanthus just out. This is going to be a sizeable shrub.

Philadelphus caucasicus just out too. Two of the three plants are growing well.

Another plant of Rhododendron excellens in full flower two years from planting out.

This is the shot for filming – Rhododendron ‘Lem’s Monarch’ at its best.

Syringa wilsonii now full out.

These wild growing Papaver cambricum beside the drive are a joy. Welsh poppy – previously Meconopsis cambrica. Fairly rare in Cornwall as a native wildflower.

The end of filming with Rick Stein, his wife, and the film crew outside the front door. Filming of what may be 10 minutes of a BBC programme about Cornish life next spring took five hours. In the garden we filmed:

Styrax veitchiorum (Styrax odoratissimum)
Rhododendron ‘Lem’s Monarch’Rhododendron excellens and Rhododendron williamsianumMagnolia sieboldiiIf we had not all been well prepared it would have taken much longer. Rick has been commissioned to host the making of 15 separate programmes over 45 days filming. As he said, little time for his other businesses.

2020 – CHW
A trip to look at the very late flowering deciduous azaleas by the Trevanion Holly. I have more or less identified these in previous years as a separate set of American bred hybrids. No names sadly but they are very different in texture/colour and flowering time to all the others on the drive.Along the way I find Deutzia ningpoensis (chunii) which we need pictures for on the website. Very pretty as it comes out.

The first orange with a yellow flash – nearly over.

This one really caught the eye today. Pinkish red with an orange flare. Hugely scented in today’s heatwave and gentler east winds.

Then a red one with an orange flare.

Still tight buds on Styrax japonicus ‘Pink Chimes’.

A light pink with yellow flare – huge bush.

Similar but with a much tighter flower head.

Slightly different again – light pink with a yellow flare and a whitish stripe.

Then a rather more conventional late flowering pale yellow.

Similar again with a darker yellow flare.

Cornus kousa ‘Wendle Weeping’ is in full shade under a magnolia but still has a few flowers.

Deutzia scabra has pink flecking on the back of its petals and pink buds but is pure white from a distance.

One forgets just how stunning Cercis canadensis ‘Forrest Pansy’ is when in leaf. It is very late to come into leaf but then…

More flowers on Hydrangea ‘Ayesha’.

A very late clump of bluebells which Serena hopes to use in her bouquet if lockdown is lifted enough for her to marry Neil – perhaps on Friday?

A very late orangey semi deciduous azalea below the Fernery. No name. The end one in this clump is earlier and darker. Youngish plants now in the Auklandii Garden but this one is worth propagating too.

2019 – CHW
A large group of Belgian and French horticulturalists and gardeners. A four hour trip around which was enjoyed by all. Slow going which is exactly how I like to look at a new garden and unknown new plants.Some wild orchids in the long grass above the greenhouse. Really rather rare here.

Lithocarpus lepidocarpus with strange new growth. Still only 4ft tall although planted in 2007.

Persea thunbergii new growth which speaks for itself.

Magnolia acuminata ‘Seiyu’ with bluish buds and yellowish flowers.

Just a single flower on Rhododendron bureavei this year but it looks well.

Acorns forming on Quercus lamellosa in profusion. Nothing has ever come of these before. They shrivel and never develop.

A low down flower on Magnolia rostrata.

The red flowers are over on Juglans ailanthifolia and seed pods are forming quickly.

The undersides of the new leaves on Salix moupinense are silvery.

Rhododendron catawbiense (or very similar) hidden away at the top of the garden. It is expendable and there are better things either side of it.

Reddish-pink new growth and early leaves on Quercus crassifolia. The silvery underside to the new leaves is good too. This is one of a few of the newer evergreen oaks which we all should be growing.

Pterostyrax psilophyllus in flower. Its leaves have three lobes and this used to be called Pterostyrax leveillei. Some plants of P. psilophyllus have leaves without the three lobes as here. The flowers are about halfway in size and shape between Pterostyrax hispida and Pterostyrax corymbosa but out a bit before or alongside the leaves.

Enkianthus hirtinervus now full out and splendid. The very last of the Enkianthus species to flower.

2018 – CHW
A young Acer macrophyllum now just in leaf in the new Isla Rose Plantation. I fear it is not in the right place and needs moving next winter.

Pterocarya macroptera var insignis does not look terribly different in its first leaf form to the Pterocarya fraxinifolia growing by the sales point which came from Tregothnan 35 or so years ago.

Pterocarya tonkinensis does however look very different in leaf. If these two survive here in the Isla Rose Plantation they will one day be enormous trees. I wonder if these species will produce numerous root suckers like P. fraxinifolia always does? Blackish bark with white spots on this new species to us. Seems very vigorous.

A good bit of tree pruning on a young beech tree to let in more light to the adjacent clump of Rhododendron nuttallii which is nearly out in flower.

This extraordinary but rather tiny and insignificant flower belongs to Euonymus moupinensis in the Auklandii Garden. The flowers seem to be growing out of the centre of the leaf (like a helwingia) but they are actually stalked back to the base of the leaf. A very odd species which we might do well to propagate.

Attractive reddish new growth on Stewartia pteropetiolata and reddish stems to the new leaves. Re-growing vigorously after major leaf loss in ‘The Beast’.

Philadelphus satsumi is a new species to us and highly floriferous. One for Asia to propagate definitely.

Wachendorfia thrysiflora in full flower in a pot in one of the greenhouse holding frames for new plants to go out in 2019.

2017 – CHW
The Great Gardens of Cornwall meeting today is at Lamorran Gardens above St Mawes. 35 years ago when Burncoose worked on a project here it was all exposed to the elements. Today the garden is shrouded in dense growth and small damp glades of exotic, rare and tender plants which you seldom, if ever, see surviving outside the greenhouse. A unique and wonderful plantsman’s paradise and the smallest of the genuinely Great Gardens of Cornwall.We have a quick tour after the meeting:The tallest and largest Clianthus puniceus I have ever seen which has been flowering since January.

A cruise ship waiting off Falmouth docks from a vantage point in the garden.

Fuchsia boliviana growing happily outside. We should try too.

Bilbergia nutans, a succulent, which I once grew as a child in pots in my greenhouse.

Unknown exotic bilbergia/orchid (?) growing happily out of the side of a palm tree.

Cyathea medullaris – one of two mature tree ferns of this species here.

The scented Rhododendron liliflora which I had never seen. Amazing scent and peeling bark.

This rhododendron is apparently a cross between Rhododendron excellans and Rhododendron nuttallii. Looks more of the latter?

Exbucklandia populnea in maturity! Amazing! We tried this twice as did Tregothnan who also lost it two times. Tregrehan have it but not at this size. Extraordinary new growth. From the tropics of India, Malaya and Indonesia. Not even faintly frost hardy but doing well here.

Another Cyathea medullaris, the Black Ponga, from New Zealand. Here it has a bit more light and a fatter stem. 15 to 20 years ago we all thought we could grow this spectacular species (and others) outside in Cornwall. We have now found out the hard way that you cannot even with a few degrees of frost.

At the top of Lamorran Gardens Robert Dudley-Cooke has recently planted a rose garden with 175 varieties – mainly old historic ones. His desire is to prove that you can grow a decent rose garden in Cornwall. I forget the name of this one with a variegated flower. All newly planted and about to flower.