20th May | The Garden Diary

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CONTRIBUTORS:

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2024 – CHW

Compare Rhododendron falconeri in full flower now to the Rh. sinofalconeri which we viewed recently. This mature clump were from a ?1930’s Kingston Ward collection rather than Forrest or so my father always told me.

Sadly the Rhododendron sinogrande which travelled up to Cheslea in 2018 and which has flowered away since its return has now succumbed to last year’s drought. Yet another delayed casualty.

The Burncoose stand nears completion.

Inevitably Karol Klein appears on the next door stand and the filming takes 2 hours for a 3 minute piece.

For the first time ever exhibitors are all allowed sales tables at Chelsea. These are modular and you can build and position as you like. Then some of the better outdoor gardens.

The Stroke Association Garden for Recovery.

St James Piccadilly – Imagine the world to be Different.

Muscular Dystrophy UK – Forest Bathing Garden.

Terence Higgins Trust – Bridge to 2030 Garden.

RHS Feature Garden – make your own mind about this horror!

John Wheatley carrying roses not dahlias.
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The team having finished the stand before some return home and some change clothes.

The water feature gets turned on.

2023 – CHW
Completed the ‘Trees for the Future’ press release for Chelsea stand which you can see here with pictures of a few of the rarer and more unusual trees on the Burncoose stand.

2022 – CHWAfter the welcome day of lightish rain yesterday there are still puddles on the garden paths and you can almost see the new growth growing everywhere.Jaimie has got the new posts in to remake Higher Quarry Nursery vermin proof again after the second beech tree in five years smashed the fence completely. The laurel has been pruned back right around the edge.

A few new things to see in the newly planted euonymus and viburnum species glade:

Euonymus oxyphyllus (BSWJ 10815) has tiny grey cream flowers with mauve buds.

Euonymus echinatus has flower buds and attractive new growth.

Euonymus tingens not quite out.

Viburnum taiwanianum still in bud. I will miss the flower next week at Chelsea.

First flowers nearly out on a good clump of Rhododendron elliotii.

Viburnum calvum with the purple undersides to the new growth.

The new leaf growth on Sassafras tzumu is odd. A new leaf or two stands upright (initially) from each twig.

Magnolia ‘Genie’ still full of flower.

Rhododendron calendulaceum – Sandling Orange-Red Form

Rhododendron wadanum ‘Album’

Another named form of Magnolia sieboldii. This one is ‘Ming Pyong’ and the centre of the flowers are certainly a paler pink.

The Iris sibirica ‘Fran’s Gold’ is looking good at Chelsea for the Plant of the Year competition on Monday.

2021 – CHW
Rhododendron ‘Matador’ with branches hanging down with the weight of flower.

Photinia serratifolia v. ardisifolia (NMWJ 14513) with attractive new growth.

Schefflera rhododendrifolia is now growing away well.

I had thought the South African Halleria lucida too tender to grow outside but here it has survived its second winter.

I have been trying to find where I had planted Viburnum hoangliense for 18 months and finally I come across it above Higher Quarry Nursery. Pictures needed for the website. Attractive new growth and buds about to open.

Rhododendron ‘Mrs Lionel de Rothschild’ now full out.

Rhododendron yakushimanum looking good as well in a clump on Burns Banks.

Enkianthus campanulatus ‘Red Velvet’ out on Burns Bank.

Acer pycnanthum – a dullish rarity. The Japanese counterpart to the North American Acer rubrum as its leaves show. A slow growing small tree now about 15ft tall.

Acer buergerianum spp. formosanum from Taiwan with leathery leaves which has struggled and is clearly tender.

Pentapanax verticilatus (BSWJ 11797) is shaping up into a large multi stemmed shrub.

2020 – CHW
So the Cornwall tourist board (and our very own Malcolm Bell) are doing the government’s bidding and telling our second homers to ‘stay away’. Including caravan sites and holiday lets too.Some may have thought that a (privatised) Cornwall tourist board was supposed to encourage tourism and wealth creation for one of the poorer parts of the country? Mr Bell hopes for fat grants in the future revival for towing the (locally popular) government diktat now that the police can do little to interrogate people in cars or turn them away.Boris has got this right!By June the frustrated city lockdown dwellers will just be turning up regardless.It is, of course, ‘common sense’, yet again, that they should.Why are we too stupid not to behave responsibly in social distancing? Why is it safer to go to a supermarket than to a holiday let?Some of the teaching unions realise that they have lost the battle of public opinion and that most teachers want to teach rather than being held as pawns by unions seeking power and control for overtly political reasons.

It gets even madder and the removal of introspection, depression and negative behaviour is still slow. We are ‘at war’ and yet lethargy, prevarication and negativism still prevail over common sense!

A socially distanced garden tour at Tregullow in the sun. James Williams said he could not remember spending over two months at Tregullow since he was a boy and has been supervising lots of clearance work in the garden (which was a little overdue).

The Cornish Reds by the house are having a severe haircut to rejuvenate them as it will.

Viburnum opalus ‘Roseum’ (‘Sterile’) – the snowball tree at the back of the house was on full show. The spherical cones are only occasionally pink.

More pruning work on from the house in phases over three years as you can see.

A giant Araucaria araucana had died and been felled. The timber was not rotten (as ours was at Burncoose) and has been sold to a kitchen flooring specialist. The tree had produced three suckers which remain in place and now have light.

Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’ planted 30 to 35 years ago in full flower. The best one I have ever seen in full flower and by far the best thing in the garden at Tregullow today.

Rhododendron ‘Rubicon’

Lizzie’s first day outside Caerhays for eight and a half weeks. She may be showing it!

Fraxinus ornus – manna ash 35 years after planting.

Rhododendron ‘Fastuosum flore pleno’ full out but a bit paler than the Caerhays form.

A huge Rhododendron ‘May Day’ which was a Werrington hybrid originally.

Sadly, possibly the best Rhododendron sinogrande in Cornwall has died of drought and over seeding (they never did remove the seed heads). However a layer remains of this exceptional form.

Rhododendron ‘Champagne’ (‘Tortoiseshell Champagne’) – a Slocock hybrid.

Rhododendron ‘Fusilier’

Rhododendron ‘Golden Torch’

Rhododendron ‘Colonel Rogers Group’ (Rhododendron niveum x Rhododendron falconeri) – I am promised a cutting.

Camellia ‘Konronkoku’ (‘Nigra’ or ‘Kunlong black’) still had plenty of near black flowers out today.

As did this unknown Camellia japonica above the tennis court. Plastered in flower! [James later suggests that this might be Camellia japonica ‘Baron Leguay’]

Rhododendron ‘Catherine Fortescue’ is a better yellow when first into flower.

The record Saxegothaea conspicua on the main drive.

Rosa ‘Canary Bird’ looking good by the old air raid shelter behind the house.

2019 – CHW
Medwyn’s vegetable stand for Anglesea. Medwyn retired nine years ago and is now 75 to 80 but got bored with not winning RHS gold medals and awards so is back!

The judges advance on our stand at about 8.15 and we observe from afar.

Rupert Eley the ‘moderator’ or monitor of the judges.

Jonathon Jones and the smoking kettle on the Tregothnan stand (I was having a smoke too!).

Godson Archie (not smoking – at the time anyway).

Mrs Williams arrives with the ice for the VIP party at 9am.

Blackmore and Langdons delphiniums and begonias as splendid as ever. What nice people they are!

The RHS woody plant committee visits the stand.

Our sponsor, Guy Hands, arrives at about 9.30 – here he is tackled by the press about Wyevale garden centres which he is on the brink of selling.

Our celebrity, Susan Hampshire, has a tour of the stand with Gerry.

Susan Hampshire with a Chelsea pensioner.

Susan Hampshire with our rose.

Susan Hampshire and Guy Hands.

The press line up for the photo call.

The photo call with Susan, Guy and Gerry.

Lizzie and Justin look on with other VIPs!

Susan and yet another Chelsea pensioner. This one gets a kiss!

The press get more excited.

The Duchess of Rutland doing something odd with paeonies in a bath right next to our stand. Some disruption caused (by me).

The painted (and largely naked) lady who got into the bath with the paeonies. Justin has more revealing pictures which I will not show here!

Peace and quiet at a late lunch but we spy another lady in an odd costume. Lunch is sparse because the RHS have shut the exhibitors’ restaurant. The pigeon did not mind!

Westcountry TV turn up for an interview rather late in the day but no worries.

2018 – CHW
Some pictures of the Chelsea build up.

2017 – CHW
Today’s great drama is will the three 10ft tall echium flowers last the course until judging? The top of one has curled over and goes on the skip but the other two are holding up and have picked up overnight. The leaves have however drooped so we cut them all off lower down. The new growth on the crinodendron has flopped a bit too so we chop this off where it can be seen. The two dustbins of embothrium are however still looking perfect.

Karol starts to take close ups of the key plants on the stand even before it is finished as these need to get onto the website by Tuesday to remind the public what they have seen and to inform those who did not have the ‘luxury’ of visiting Chelsea themselves.

2016 – CHW
We arrived in London about midday to find everything moving forward with the stand in good time. Rob Toy had arrived with the cut stuff much earlier and he was proving a dab hand at flower arranging in the new bowls and vases which made life considerably easier than it has been for some years. We have more than enough stuff to finish the stand and there is no need to panic this year. Even the Rayners water feature is in place although not actually working of course.

2015 – CHW

Protea little 02 — Protea ‘Little Prince’

We have taken more orders already than in the whole of the last two Chelseas. It is not like it used to be 20 years ago but bloody good and the orders are rolling in off the internet at the nursery.I take Jill Otway, organiser of the Plant of the Year, for a liquid lunch using the last of Guy’s pink fizz to thank her for all her help with our entry. We smoke away happily outside the exhibitors’ tent and ignore the RHS bosses who frown on such things.

Finally, on to the Cornish Club dinner at the Travellers Club. My brother and I agree we are totally knackered and head swiftly to bed without the port.

1992 – FJW
George Williams at Chelsea – garden still good but HOT with E wind and dry.

1981 – FJW
Visitor laid an EGG in Maurices suite (George Blandfords bedroom).

1909 – JCW
R roylei nice, C montana rubra good, bluebells nearly at the top, Montana ¾ of its best. Van Tubergens Iris are over.

1908 – JCW
R roylei nice, Montana rubra over.

1906 – JCW
A little pink May, a few Waterers, Azaleas in mid season I korolkowi on the wane. Bluebells on the wane or nearly. A little seed from Artemis under glass.

1904 – JCW
We are three weeks behind 1899, I picked some (most of ) the de Graaf under glass; moved two seedlings and some unflowered cyclamineus. Montana is nearly at its best.

1899? – JCW
A few I lorteti, most of the I pavonia, all the A altaclarence. Bluebells very good, primroses nearly over. No waterlilies.

1897 – JCW
Pink May at their best, also Iris siberica and waterer rhodo’s. Iris lorteti open, a large lot of roses out, nearly all Azaleas open. Bluebells going over, primroses gone, a few waterlilies at Beech Walk, none in the Big Pond. Gibsonii Rhodo going over.