6th May | The Garden Diary

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2026 – CHW (images to follow)

A tour of Bonython Garden. It was supposed to rain all afternoon but didn’t! A garden of contrasts and surprises. South Africa meets a traditional Cornish woodland garden. Beautifully maintained.

Moraea huttonii – iris-like and stand out today. A South African cormous perennial.

The Leylandii shelter belt which I planted c.35 years ago was blown away in Goretti. Around 90 trees down at Bonython but mainly in the shelter belts rather than the garden itself.

Azalea ‘Kermesinum Rosé’ which is well worth growing.

View of the rhododendron glades.

A huge mature Photinia which might be x fraseri ‘Robusta’?

Arum lilies and Iris pseudacorus at the water’s edge. Not sure of the name of the variegated one – perhaps Iris pseudacorus ‘Variegata’?

I think I planted this Davidia also.

Two or three species of bamboo flowering and dying – here Thamnocalamus crassinodus which I have not seen before (now dead!)

The huge Bonython Paulownia tomentosa excellent today.

With a David Austin rose climbing up through the Paulownia and over the wall of the walled garden.

An Iris species which I first saw at Penrice Castle in the conservatory.

Rhododendrons above the house which date from the Lyle era. This is Rhododendron ‘Percy Wiseman’.

2025 – CHW

Mahonia x savilleana – Clone 7 – is at least growing away with new growth unlike the other plants of this cross (2019 planted).

A good new young Rhododendron ‘Sappho’ at the far end of Old Park.

Neolitsea sericea ‘Yellow Leaf’ (CWJ 12830) – now a third form of N. sericea to admire. Very golden!

A newly planted Rhododendron vaseyi ‘White Find’ in the Rockery (perhaps ‘White Fino’?)

A young Rhododendron elliottii thrives but several adjacent rhodos planted a year ago have got severely windblown over winter.

Tail end flowers on Magnolia ‘Fairy Pink’ – a young plant in the Rockery.

Magnolia ‘Honey Flower’ is beside M. ‘Honey Belle’ but much later into flower. Belle is now over.

Magnolia acuminata subsp. multipetala. First flowering that I have seen here.

The true Enkianthus cernuus rubens now full out.

Rhododendron (Azalea) kiusianum.

2024 – CHW
Scented Rhododendron tour today with 8 people. Only 4 wanted the lecture so we compromised.Last year’s drought has resulted in many dead flower buds on Rhododendron megacalyx. The few flowers left will not be out for a bit yet. New growth visible today only where there are no flower buds.

Rhododendron ‘Lady Alice Fitzwilliam’ beside the greenhouse.

Rhododendron ‘Tinkerbird’ is just coming out rather later than all the other ‘smellies’. A rather spreading habit and here in full tree cover. We lost this twice on the Burncoose drive.

A flower or two on our Rhododendron ‘Royal Flush’ by George’s Hut.

The rare Rhododendron concinnum now in far too much shade by the Acer griseum.

The pink form of Rhododendron ‘Royal Flush’ beyond the Acer griseum.

Flowers nearly out on Halesia macgregorii. Is it really a Chinese Rehderodendron species and not an American Halesia?

Good bronze leaves emerging on Hydrangea aspera ‘Hot Chocolate’. This is our second attempt at the start of the Sinogrande Walk. The first lot were killed in the drought of 2022.

First flowers out on Echium pininana by the Gents loos.

The Times pretend they want to do an article about our 40 years at Burncoose but of course it’s only a con trick to get us to pay £5k for 6 weeks online advertising. This quickly falls to £2k when we fail to reply.

2023 – CHW

Coronation day here on a drizzly, overcast day with mist and sea fret. Perfect growing weather for the garden but not perhaps the weather that King Charles III would have chosen for HIS big event!

10 signets have hatched off on the lake and the parents allowed us to see them for the first time today. They look a few days old already. Last year only 1 of 7 survived. This pair of swans are breeding for their third year here and are clearly getting the hang of it now. A much earlier hatch off than previously. Lets hope the otters don’t get them all. Interesting that the pair headed off last autumn for a couple of months and took their one surviving signet with them. He came back with them but they never allowed him near the lake and, after a week or two, pushed off.

Slow worms sighted under a rhododendron which was cut back outside the front gate.

Magnolia officinalis var. biloba flowering in Penvergate. Later than usual but the one by Slip Rail is still not showing at all.

Viburnum taiwanianum with huge flower heads.

Merrilliopanax alpinus (BSWJ 13939) with its attractive new growth.

Picconia excelsa flowering for the first time here. Rather bay-laurel like? Its related to Olea and comes from the Canary Isles. If it survives it will become a large evergreen tree with hard, heavy wood.

Pseudotaxus chienii with attractive new growth.

New growth on a young Carya ovata.

2022 – CHW
Jaimie sends me this picture of a blackbird nesting for the third year running in the same place in ivy behind a Callistemon rigidus (as you can see from the gnarled seedpods). Lots to be said for magpie control with Larsen traps in his garden. The chicks have in fact hatched and both parents are feeding them. Vermin control is the secret to the survival of songbirds but that is, ‘naturally’, a politically incorrect statement to those who want corvids and raptors to wipe out all smaller birds in our countryside.

Scaly rustgill (Gymnopilus sapineus) growing in our eco-friendly green waste compost in which all our herbaceous plants have been potted this year. Can you imagine what the customer would have said if he or she had received this pot by mail order? Carbon credit worthiness at a price! This is the third such green waste fungus that I have shown in the diary.

Rhododendron bahuiniflorum and Magnolia ‘Daphne’ and Rhododendron ‘Damaris’.

The new growth on Quercus chapensis from seed grown by Margaret Miles from a conference in China in 2015. Gorgeous reddish-black new growth.

Michelia ‘Touch of Pink’ and Rhododendron ‘Fragrantissimum’ together as I had hoped to see a fortnight or so ago.

Michelia (Magnolia) laevifolia ‘Summer Snowflake’ and Rhododendron niveum. What a colour contrast! My mother always said Rh. niveum was suitable only as lavatory wallpaper but I never agreed. Gorgeous colour – gorgeous Chinese species!

Pomaderis elliptica now full out in flower. Peculiar but not unattractive. Missed any scent during a garden tour (one of many this week).

Sue Nathan sends me a picture of a late flower on their Magnolia ‘Atlas’ at Bonython where I was earlier this week in light, but welcome, rain. I did not dare say that the flower was ‘unrepresentative’!

2021 – CHW
After the showers the poplars (left) and oaks in Old Park provide an exciting colour contrast.

A hard pruning for the hydrangea clump by the top lodge.

This is Allen Coombes’ 900 collection which he says is now named Quercus kiukiangensis. We had thought it was very close to Nigel Holman’s collection of Quercus oxyodon (see earlier this week).

This is the ancient Quercus glauca in the 1920s Quercus clump below the Pound. The tree is partially dead and not very accessible as far as the foliage goes but still has some vigorous regrowth.

This is one of the four 1920s Quercus acuta in the same clump. You could be forgiven for thinking the leaves are quite different from our other Q. acuta but the bark splits and fissures in the same way.

Rhododendron ‘Michael’s Pride’ just out.

View 6th May 1897 – 2020