30th June | The Garden Diary

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View 30th June 1897 – 2020

CONTRIBUTORS:

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2026 – CHW (images to follow)

The pollarded Tilia cordata ‘Winter Orange’ is making great progress with its reshooting.

Keteleeria davidiana is growing well.

A newly planted Tilia nobilis (KR226) is starting to get away.

As is Cyclocarya paliurus.

Tilia tomentosa ‘Petiolaris’ with huge leaves and flowers on pendulous branches.

Fruits forming on Acer campestre ‘Elsrijk’.

And on Cornus macrophylla.

Carpinus japonica with seed clusters turning pink.

A recently planted Carpinus caroliniana.

Cornus drummondii ‘Sunshiny Drops’ just out.

Fruits forming on Juglans ailantifolia.
Carpinus pubescens (Roundabarrow).

Callicarpa bodinieri ‘Profusion’ flowering well this year.

Pomaderris apetala covered in black seed.

Tail end flowers on Rhododendron ‘Saffron Queen’.

2025 – CHW

Phil Knuckey and Cressy Knuckey receive the Master Grower award at Hampton Court.

Here are 11 pictures of the Master Grower stand itself.

2024 – CHW
Cornus oblonga has bronzy new growth as well.

The old original Catalpa bungei ‘Duclouxii Group’, as we are now supposed to call Catalpa duclouxii, is flowering away better than I have ever seen it but the flowers are nowhere near as good or heavily marked as our other younger plant, which fell over, or the one I admire at Ventnor above their Tropical House.

Despite the relatively mild and storm free weather Maackia chinensis has collapsed and split in half.

Chionanthus virginicus will now get much more light and should start performing rather better. It was planted 33 years ago and has hardly flowered or grown much.

Idesia polycarpa in full flower.

Still plenty of final tail end flowers on Berberis wilsoniae. Very late for this to still be in flower.

Still a few decent flowers on Magnolia ‘Genie’ as we near July.

This was once, 35 years ago, the stump of a Pinus radiata. Seedlings from Rhododendron ‘Polar Bear’ grew up around it and look at it today.

2023 – CHW

Magnolia/ Manglietia kwangtungensis/ moto with its buds swelling and splitting.

Magnolia virginiana ‘Northern Belle’ has its first couple of buds two years on from planting.

Acer sikkimense (WJC 13674) with wonderful secondary new growth.

This is labelled Magnolia crassifolia (MWJ 13163) which does not appear to exist in the reference book so some cock up here somewhere? First flowering with 6 or so flowers of which only one still on the tree (+ 1 bud). Again much like M. insignis although the leaves are a bit different.

Tilia kiusiana about to flower.

Cornus kousa ‘Milky Way’ nearly over.

I was very rude last year about Hydrangea serrata ‘Crug Cobalt’. Now I take it all back. Nice thing and well worth Asia propagating.

Only one of the four Hydrangea ‘Runaway Bride’ planted in 2021 has survived. Too dry a spot for them but a fantastic hydrangea none the less.

The Camellia x williamsii ‘Mary Jobson’ is shooting well after its haircut despite the drought.

2022 – CHW

A visit to the Isle of Wight Grain Storage Ltd near Cowes. The farmer owned cooperative company handles circa 20,000 tonnes of wheat/oats/barley/rape grown on the island and has just invested £2.5m in new grain drying and milling equipment. The two biodigesters on the island which need feed (grass / whole crop) sourced locally have greatly reduced the amount of arable crops grown in recent years. The new milling allows poultry, beef, diary and pig farmers to purchase processed animal feeds made on the island rather than importing from the mainland. Vessels capable of loading 3,000 tonnes of grain can moor up and be loaded beside the storage facility.

Storage tanks old and new.

The new grain drier.

This machine dry cools the grain tanks without the need to continuously blow air through the grain.

Grain loaded on vessels from the adjacent gravel works jetty.

The new milling equipment and the end products.

Solar panels were providing 50% of the electricity needed to run the site today.

Sir William Caws stands below an ancient crane in Cowes on the site of a former ship building factory where he worked as a boy in the late 1950s. Jumping into the water from the top of the crane (at high tide) at the end of a day’s work was apparently normal. A tall story indeed!

2021 – CHW
A bit of a magnolia hunt today.The pink form of Rhododendron ‘Polar Bear’ just showing.

Manglietia insignis just out and perfect today but loads of bud to come.

Magnolia sapaensis nearly out. Note the little leaflets at the tip of most (but not all) buds which is an unusual (unique?) characteristic of this species.