2022 – CHW
Five hundred plant photographs for the website database but a lot of standing about yapping to the great and good while judging goes on around us. No celebrity for the media on the Burncoose stand this year.The 90 second presentation of each of the Plant of the Year finalists begins at 2pm in the president’s pavilion suite. Here is the setting. We are (of course) running late as the president’s lunch ends with Monty Don being awarded a Victoria Medal of Honour. (He is the late Peter Seabrook’s successor to this award). Hurriedly we get under way and my speech has to contain a joke about the yellow leaves not being yellow as well as an appeal to traditionalists. This is a plant grown by an amateur over 20 years and not the product of a Dutch tissue culture / genetically modified laboratory.

You can read the two Burncoose Chelsea press releases by clicking here & here.

A good interview with Horticulture Week on the peat ban at Chelsea in 2025 and how absurd this is for growers of ericaceous plants. Have the RHS scientists come up with an alternative. Of course not!

Here are a few of the other Plant of the Year entries which I liked:

Geranium x cantabrigiense ‘Intense’

Rhododendron ‘Stardust Pink’ (stenophyllum ‘Linearifolium’ refined a bit)

Forsythia x intermedia ‘Discovery’

Armeria pseudoarmeria ‘Dreamland’ came second.

Iris sibirica ‘Fran’s Gold’, despite everything came fourth!

The Queen and our new RHS president, Mr Weed (call me Keith please), in an electric popemobile pass close by just before the gala night begins (4,000 tickets at £1,000 each for a two and a half hour drinks party) and the corks begin to pop.

2021 – CHW
Today we go to look at around 40 different plants where the identity is unknown or uncertain so that Susyn and Brian can take away samples for identification or give us a pointer as to whether our naming is correct.

This is a wonderful suckering and multi-stemmed plant of Quercus coccifera in full flower in Penvergate.

During the day, where we were joined by Tom Hudson, we found quite a number of naming errors in young oaks collected by Allen Coombes and grown here from seed. These were planted out 2003 to 2007 and some have died as we know. However the survivors, with their original planting labels, are a muddle to put it mildly. Whether we muddled the seed labels or if mice moved seed about in seed trays or quite what has happened is hard to say. Subject to confirmation we think we have now sorted out Quercus morii and Lithocarpus corneus but the three Lithocarpus lepidocarpus are, Tom believes, Lithocarpus hancei. Quercus gilva has died or vanished and we are left with a number of queries which will need an oak expert to help sort out. Quercus monimotricha is not true to name by the George Blandford and neither is Quercus dolciholepis by the Paulownia ‘Lilacina’ according to Tom. All very frustrating and confusing to put it mildly.

Magnolia ‘Moonspire’ in Old Park. Not a great find!

This was labelled ‘Fiax barumina’. It looks like it is a Fraxinus with yellow leaves initially but is clearly very tender and has hardly grown at all in 10 years. Sample taken for identification.

The ilex in the old Charlie Michaels Nursery has also partially reverted to Ilex x altaclerensis ‘Hendersonii’ from what was originally Ilex x altaclerensis ‘Belgica Aurea’. The variegated leaves are very variable.

We believe this is Quercus affinis although I thought it was Quercus castanifolia when looking at the spiny acorns cups last autumn.

This is labelled Quercus monimotricha (90-0250) but Tom believed it was not.

Azalea ‘Elsie Lee’ a good late show.

We now await Susyn’s conclusions and I will resist writing more now to avoid muddying the water further. We did identify a mystery plant near the Engine House as Ilex verticillata (near the Windsor Ilex spinigera) which gives us a second Ilex verticillata. Tom also confirms the much debated Lithocarpus nearby as Lithocarpus edulis (not Lithocarpus glabra). However it is quite dissimilar to the L. edulis at Rosemoor.

Susyn brought samples with her of Ilex colchica and a copy of her 1995 article in the Plantsman on the Black Sea holly which was only reintroduced to cultivation about 35 years ago and had long been thought of as a form of the native Ilex aquifolium. We have a plant in the greenhouse which Susyn confirmed is correctly named as is a young plant of Ilex fargesii subsp. fargesii var. fargesii. The latter used to grow here but had died out.

2020 – CHW
The RHS Virtual Chelsea ‘Plant of the Decade’ competition ended in a possible degree of farce.

Only on Friday 22nd did we hear from Jill Otway who organises the normal Plant of the Year Chelsea competitions. Online public voting had started last Tuesday (19th).

She told us the public voting on Plant of the Decade (10 Plant of the Year winners and our Viburnum ‘Kilimanjaro Sunrise’ from 2015) would close ‘tonight’.

It actually closed at lunchtime.

Jill also told us that she had arranged for Sir Nicholas Bacon (the RHS President) to select HIS choice as Plant of the Decade on Friday’s programme and that the winner would be revealed on the RHS website today with a press release sent out.

So we watch Monty and Joe Swift on the Virtual Chelsea programme at 8pm on Friday.

Monty clutched a plant of Streptocarpus ‘Harlequin Queen’ which was Plant of the Year in 2010 and announced it as ‘Plant of the Decade’ winner.

Mrs Dibley, from Dibleys Nurseries, who bred the wonderful plant herself, was then shown in her greenhouse thanking the president for “voting for this as his choice for Plant of the Decade”.

No mention of numbers who voted or the votes cast by Monty Don on air.

By 9am Saturday no RHS news item or press release to be seen on their website.

Did the president choose for everyone?

Was the president’s choice the same as the public’s vote?

Did Monty and the BBC producers actually muddle the two choices? Certainly it was all very unclear to viewers at the time.

AND by 10.00am it did!

Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum ‘Kilimanjaro Sunrise’ WAS the People’s Choice Winner of Plant of the Decade (voting numbers not revealed)!

A big ring around to the nursery staff. Thankfully we have plenty of plants to fulfil new orders. Will we get a new rosette? Prize badge or whatever (as before) one day – next Chelsea perhaps?

Many thanks to all the friends, supporters and customers who did vote for Kilimanjaro Sunrise and who might well have been confused by last night’s programme.

Scaffolding up for repointing (and gutter repairs) outside the Georgian Hall in perfect weather for this.

A pheasant’s nest with nine eggs made from Echium leaves outside the Ante Room. Unusually this hen pheasant is actually trying to incubate them and a big snail’s shell as you can see if you look closely.

Off to Forty Acres to catch up there.

The original Schefflera macrophylla which we cut for Chelsea two years ago looking well but no flowers here yet.

A decent Magnolia sieboldii in full flower.

Magnolia tripelata with a few flowers. I had forgotten this one.

Staphylea holocarpa ‘Rosea’ with bladders. The first time this species has produced any with us since the old trees died and we started again.

Thinning work has just started at the very top of the 1991 hurricane replanting. Quite a lot more still to do.

Jaimie cleared around a magnolia at the top of the hill which is not to be thinned and is marked accordingly. One day you will hopefully see this from miles away.

Two quick growing Tetradium daniellii trees in Penvergate which I have never caught in flower before. It used to be called Euptelia daniellii. Swarming with bees and wasps today on the flowers. Come to think of it I am not sure it has actually flowered here before?

The champion tree Magnolia ‘Yellow Fever’ still has quite a few flowers left out. It was very late into flower this year.

Three groups of my father’s rhododendron hybrids which Jaimie will have to interpret.

I had forgotten that there is a decent paulownia in the corner of Penvergate.

Still a few buds and flowers on Magnolia ‘Apollo’ – what a ‘laster’!

This area will, as usual, be the first to be cut in about a week or 10 days. The trash is well over knee height.

Sorbus torminalis nicely in flower. A Cornish champion tree which split in half a few years ago but is reshooting well and suckering from the base. Attractive leaves too. Burncoose has nice plants of this native species.

The original plant of Azalea ‘Caerhays Lavender’ by the Green Gate. Rather later out than the ones on the Main Ride. Colder and more exposed here.

Delighted to see that the single naturalised Gladiolus communis ssp. byzantinus has survived on the bank. We need to be careful not to cut it but I think we will leave the wildflowers to their own devices this year here at least until late August.

2019 – CHW

So back to Cornwall totally exhausted (as usual) after Chelsea. Swollen ankles also, as usual, too but no Cornish Club dinner hangover as I thought this a ‘bridge too far’ after six days at the bloody show.

Only one customer row (with a lady from Zimbabwe) which is a new record and many compliments about the speed of delivery of orders placed online together with much praise for our packing sheds. All very good and encouraging.

2,000 Burncoose catalogues where (mainly) stolen or purchased from the stand which was more than usual. Order numbers much as we have come to expect them in the internet age. The secret of Chelsea success is now in how many visitors Chelsea generates or has generated already for our website. 200-250,000 I hope based on May last year.

While we have been away there seems to have been a car rally by the ‘Proper Cornish Cruisers’.

Indigofera howellii ‘Reginald Cory’ has flowered nicely by the Playhouse.

A clump of a rare bamboo species by Tin Garden has decided to flower and die. I need to look up which one.

A baby rabbit annoys Jaimie while completing the spraying around plants for this year.

2018 – CHW
Planted only this year from Glendoick is a nice new clump of Rhododendron cinnabarinum ‘Roylei Group’ with their first few flowers. These look much closer to the old red roylei that used to grow on the drive here by the fernery and died out years ago and do not look much like the wonderful purple form we saw in The Valley Gardens but wonderful to have this back in the garden nevertheless.

Another batch of my father’s hybrids which are fairly variable but quite nice. I will catch up on those when I get back and check exactly what they are but it looks like Rhododendron crassum is the parentage.

2017 – CHW
I discover we have another gold medal at 6.45am. Very well deserved by the whole team. Blood, sweat and tears (over the echiums) along the way!

Pictures of the finished stand

2016 – CHW

Bowden hostas have been at it all night. End result still laughingly bad with pots showing all over where they ran out of plants and ghastly bamboos with yellow leaves. Before we can laugh any further the judges appear soon after 8 o’clock and pause to look disdainfully at Rhododendron ‘Ruby Hart’ which droops a bit naturally anyway but has clearly gone beyond the natural stage (little do they know we cut half off already). ‘Lady Alice’ is on the floppy side too. By the afternoon it would certainly, in the judges’ parlance, have been deemed to ‘have gone’. One of the judges clearly dislikes the bold sway of rhodos behind the cashpoint (from which Karol had to rapidly remove his suitcase following the arrival of the sniffer dogs – the suitcase obviously contained substances of a non explainable nature and a hasty return to the car was necessary). We do not quite see what the judges vote despite our best efforts. Next door the Millais rhododendron stand is absolutely superb and definitely worth a gold medal.Guy Hands arrives about 9am in a very laid back mood insisting that he, unusually, will not be taking a drink because he is due in the High Court the following week for six days in round three of Terra Firma vs Citibank over the EMI deal.

Despite the new barcode and photographic ID security arrangements his minder seems to have managed to gain entry to stop him being asked awkward questions by the press. Most of the press start bullying him to find out whether his garden centre chain is going to buy out Dobbies. He sort of refuses to answer but it is pretty clear to all what the answer is.

Our celebrity Naomie Harris, the black Bond girl sensation, arrives half an hour late for the press photo call. She has been having £700 of make up and hair done at home. The media have assembled in huge numbers, crowding round the stand, but are quickly bored. Suddenly Jerry Hall and Mr Murdoch appear in the distance and they all hurry off leaving poor Shelley, our PR person, looking a bit destitute. Eventually Naomie turns up breathless and in hot pants and the press throng descends. No time even for an introduction about where she is and what she is doing. We plonk her on the steps of our stand where she smiles sweetly.

Then we grab a rhodo from the RCMG (Rhododendron, Camellia & Magnolia Group) stand which causes much squawking by Sally and thrust it in Naomie’s hand, dripping bark mulch onto her fine attire. So at least we get a bloody rhodo in the shot. We then drag the poor unsuspecting Naomie off to the RCMG stand with Rupert Eley, David Millais and myself, the great grandchildren of the founders of the Rhododendron Society 100 years ago. She looks particularly pretty and Mr Eley spends some time admiring her heavily made up legs. Then we dragged her back to our stand again where we manage to get her posing so you can actually see the bloody Burncoose sign.

Hugely embarrassing moment when the press want to interview her about how she is enjoying the show etc. Since she had no idea whose stand she was on the TV interviews were not a huge success. Finally we get rid of most of the press and actually do the shots which we want of us, Guy Hands, Naomie Harris and the Burncoose sign. Karol has developed the journalistic technique of barging other bastards out of the way rather than being barged out of the way himself and the shots we now get are really rather good. Even better is that we have avoided the press pinching most of the drinks. Guy Hands says this particular vintage has been discontinued on the advice of a French vineyard owner who says Italians have no clue how to grow grapes. In consequence he has 80,000 bottles of this exploding pink champagne to get rid of and the rest of the exhibitors are delighted to give him a hand. Finally we drag Naomie off to actually look at the stand and have a chat. It has all been the usual media shambles but Naomie is on the front page of the Evening Standard with a bloody rhodo.

Jim Gardiner and another very smart RHS party arrive at the stand and I have to give an impromptu talk while they look sniffily at us drinking pink champagne before 10.45am.

One of the nozzles of the fountain is quite clearly misdirected and squirting water over the stand – nothing we can do now. Major Rayner collapses with heat stroke and has to be tended by the Red Cross.

Then we get to the royal visit. The RHS say they will bring the Queen to celebrate the Rhododendron Society centenary and will present us to her on the stand. Huge excitement and we even get an extra ticket – unheard of. She duly arrives at the RCMG stand and is given a posy of rhododendrons by Sally Hayward on behalf of the RCMG. Quite a bit of chat and she is then introduced to David Millais one pace away from John Hill and I. The RHS president, Nikko Bacon, now realises the Queen has spent too long wittering about rhododendrons – she is just explaining how she prefers ‘floppy’ ones rather than the group’s choice of Rhododendron yakushimanum ‘Koichiro Wada’ as their favourite. The president’s eyes say to me: ‘I haven’t really got time to introduce her to you, Charlie. Do you really mind?’. I smile and shake my head – I do not really care – and they march on. John Hill is rather put out but I explain that this is not the moment to be pushy and get told off by the beefy security people. The only problem is that the security people have removed everyone a long way away and it remains to be seen if we have any decent photos of the Queen’s inspection.

So now on to the gala evening where Guy Hands’ guest list seems to have grown from 12 to 26 and he decides to stick it out on our stand and to let people come to him rather than wandering amongst the great and good from the City. The RHS gala evening champagne is filthy, the eats are better than usual but of course no one would think of buying any plants. Suddenly Michael Balston and Marie-Louise Agius arrive in a panic because they are two tickets short for their esteemed guests. So the usual ticket skulduggery and swapping to get them in and huge relief and kisses. Then Balston says he wants to talk to Hands about his company bidding for the roof garden on Hands’ new house in Guernsey so I introduce them to each other and Michael Balston makes his sales pitch. We will be looking for serious quid pro quo for two acts of business generosity which are clearly beyond the pale. My nephew, George, also makes good chat with Hands about his plant search app (slightly tipsy). Tom Cross-Brown emerges giggling into the evening and we have good laugh at the railway carriage and the story thereof. My brother (Savills do not have a garden this year) and Ed Clarke are standing claiming ownership of the M&G (RHS sponsors) garden which does not win best in show and which I tell them looks pretty scruffy. Our rhodos are flopping badly and various people tell me this in whispers but we do not care as the judges have finished and do nothing about it. Justin appears having been notably absent and is clearly too tight to stand up having been chucked off the Tregothnan stand. It is soon clear that he and Guy Hands are not going to enjoy each other’s company in this state so he needs to make himself scarce. How he can be so pissed by 6pm remains unclear.

It appears we got very good coverage on the Chelsea TV on Monday night and the BBC have promised to come on Wednesday to film the RCMG stand and the Eley/Millais/Williams combination wearing tweeds.

Further pictures and information about Chelsea 2016 can be found on the Burncoose Nurseries website.

2015 – CHW
Escape at once to avoid the wedding on the lawn.  The groom’s parents are reading the FT outside my study as I write but fortunately they cannot see in.

The plan is to inspect the new plantings of old fashion Ghent azaleas bought from a tiny nursery in Belgium four to five years ago and planted in nine groups of nine to try to give the public a good late season show in Kennel Close new planting which is still too windy and exposed for rhododendrons to thrive.

Only three groups are out so far and they have bizarre names as you would expect.

They are bolder colours and nicer than I was expecting.  Quite unlike any of the unnamed deciduous azaleas on the drive which are to be inspected shortly.  Six more groups still to flower.  They are slow growers.

Nearby is Crataegus ‘Pauls Scarlet’ which has always been one of my favourites.  Perhaps the only hawthorn worth growing.  I first saw this at Anthony Woodland garden decades ago.Two more newly planted enkianthus flowering for the first time in Kennel Close:

Enkianthus cernuus recurvus – not in the reference books, not looking at all like Enkianthus cernuus perhaps but definitely ‘recurved’ bells so a welcome new addition to the growing collection.

Enkianthus cernuus rubens – quite clearly red and equally clearly not at all like the true species viewed yesterday.  Nurseries have been importing Dutch plants for years which are wrongly named but people are usually fooled by the colour.Then a quick catch up of newer rhododendron hybrids seldom seen properly before because of Chelsea absences.

Rhododendron ‘Cetemayo’ – bought from Millais Nurseries

Rhododendron ‘Glendoick Velvet’ – plastered, but not my colour.

Rhododendron ‘Norfolk Candy’ – Millais.  Shy flowerer.  Looked better at Chelsea last year.

Rhododendron ‘Grazelia’ – Millais.  One good plant survives from three planted three years ago.  Clearly Rhododendron roxienanum in its parentage.

Rhododendron ‘Poleris’ – pleasant texture

Rhododendron loderi ‘Topaz’ – absolutely stunning although its foliage often looks a bit chloritic.  Pink in bud opening to a huge white scented flower.

Nearby I spot the unusual Caragana arborescens ‘Walker’ – a top grafted plant now 24 years old and still trailing nicely.  Its yellow pea flowers are a delight.  A good patio tub plant.