2026 – CHW
Tour and Magnolia lecture.
Magnolia ‘Cassiopeia’ flowering for the first time. Nothing special as yet.
Magnolia ‘Summer Rose’ is rather better but very similar to ‘Venus’,
Magnolia ‘Pink Pyramid’ now full out. Again a first time flowerer 4 years on from planting.
Then to Tregrehan for an examination of more obscure plants from Australia and New Zealand.
A chance Camellia saluenensis seeding (unnamed) with large attractive bicolour flowers.
The trunk of Keteleeria evelyniana.
Rhododendron genestierianum in flower.
Cinnabarinum rovleyi – a new genus to look up. A few flowers.
Blepharocalyx cruckshanksii has wonderful bark in maturity.
Luma chequen has rather less interesting bark.
The trunk of Juniperus procera.
Leptospermum liversidgei.
Widdringtonia schwarzii – a conifer I have only ever read about but, until now, never seen.
Eucryphia wilkiei – another rarity.
Coprosma rigida in flower.
Alseuosmia macrophylla in bud and flower. A striking New Zealand shrub.
Libocedrus plumosa.
Beilschmiedia tawa.
Halocarpus biformis.
Laurelia novae-zelandiae.
Pseudopanax macintyrei in flower – never seen this species before.
Illicium macranthum full out with gorgeous scent.
Schefflera bodinieri.
Camellia yuhsiensis looking very fine.
Viburnum sympodiale – an excellent species.
This is apparently a Templeteria.
Agapetes serpens.
2025 – CHW
RHS Spring Camellia Show at Rosemoor.
Here are some of the Caerhays entries.
3 vases of Magnolias.
– Magnolia ‘Bishop Peter’
Pam Hayward has come up with a name for the very early flowering orange (deciduous) azalea which grows on the drive here and, also, at Burncoose. We have never had any idea of a name and some years the well-established 80? year old clumps have actually flowered in January. Pam provides the name Azalea ‘Don Quixote’ which is a Knap-Hill bred variety and the synonym ‘Soho’.Galle’s gigantic reference book on Azaleas lists pages of named Knap-Hill azaleas but not one named ‘Don Quixote’. Galle does list ‘Soho’ (page 229) but the description is ‘white with vivid red variations’.While I can quite see that the ‘Don Quixote’ would be a good name for an azalea flowering absurdly out of season I am not sure that we have solved the puzzle yet? If you Google search the name Azalea ‘Don Quixote’ you come up with very little. The.jardins-du-monde.be site has a picture of a yellowish azalea with this name but the colours are nothing like the orange tones of our plants.
The Queen Mother’s 1984 planted magnolia by George’s Hut is looking very fine today just before it rained. Its more or less a pure M. sargentiana var. robusta seedling.
Decoration at the front door for the Gardening Weekend.
2022 – CHW
Back at Caerhays.
Roy Lancaster and Mike Nelhams underneath Magnolia ‘Sir Harold Hillier’.
2021 – CHW
Off to Burncoose for a day of rather exciting pre year end planning and development meetings. I cannot ever remember being in the pleasurable position in the nursery of agreeing to spend £100k on new equipment in one day in 40 years in the business. After the pandemic we can afford it and the volume of business continues to grow while plant stocks run ever shorter and so much on our website is sadly ‘currently unavailable’.
I have written two website news items today. One seeking new staff for the nursery and one apologising for but explaining that it takes time to grow more plants to meet demand! The whole nursery industry is short of stock and garden centres are too.
We have improved our packing shed and computer systems in 12 months more than we could have expected to do over five to seven years.
All one can do is have a nice look at all our plant production coming on as we move into warmer weather in the spring. All these pictures are in the growing area of the nursery which the public do not see.
Agapanthus for the summer rush.
The Burncoose magnolias in front of the house have been frosted but not as badly as I had anticipated, and yesterday’s gales have done no damage.
Magnolia sprengeri diva ‘Burncoose’ beside the house. As usual some flowers blown open and pale while others are a good ‘red.
