Another Rhododendron davidsonianum ‘Caerhays Pink’ with secondary flowers.

Lithocarpus quercifolius from Hong Kong with good secondary growth.

Quercus engelmannii growing away well.

Ilex chapaensis with berries.

Magnolia campbellii ‘Sir Harold Hillier’ (Alba Group) still in full leaf.

Carpinus rankanensis in a similar state.

Rhododendron keysii full out.

Rhododendron keysii alongside the cones on Abies koreana.

2023 – CHW
In a back street in Tregony I spy this wonderful multi-stemmed and multi-branched Cotoneaster frigidus.

So I decide to visit Tubbs Mill where there is another fine plant growing. Also multi-stemmed but the fruits are slightly less dark red and slightly more reddish- orange. The leaf and habit is as a tall shrub with slightly pendulous branches and is the same.

I remember another excellent (almost) small tree at Jane Scott’s house. We have C. frigidus ‘Inchmery’ here, originally from Windsor, but I have not seen anyone offering C. frigidus in the nursery trade nor C. x watereri come to that. These are wonderful plants and I need to grab a few seeds to get this into propagation properly at Burncoose.

Also in Tubb’s Mill garden an excellent Mahonia lomariifolia. The tenants used to run a small nursery here.

First single flower on Camellia japonica ‘Debutante’.

Decent flowers on Hydrangea ‘Madame E. Mouillere’ cut back in the summer.

3 flowers out on Camellia japonica ‘Adolphe Audusson’. This one has a bit of variegation in the flower but the other 2 do not.

This is the base of the fallen and felled huge beech tree above The Hovel. I count 140 rings but the centre is too rotten to get to the base year. The tree was probably around 150 years old which is good going for a beech tree in Cornwall. Planted around 1870-1875.

2022 – CHW
Glyptostrobus pensilis ‘Wooly Mammoth’ with its peculiar autumn tints. A broken branch has quickly produced new growth.

Cornus iberica with its blackish-red autumnal show.

Ripe seed on Cupressus torulosa. Asia might find this easier to grow from seed than cuttings?

I thought I spied early flower on Camellia ‘Adolphe Audusson’ but it was only ripe seeds.

Another leading magnolia shoot split out by the wind while still in leaf. This is the problem as many magnolias retain their leaves long into winter.

Still plenty of secondary flowers on Rhododendron decorum in November!

A surprise early (single as yet) flower on Camellia japonica ’Bokuhan’.

But nothing doing yet on Camellia cuspidata nearby. One would have expected the reverse.

2021 – CHW
Burning up the dead malus by the garden entrance.

More flowers on a Camellia ‘Sode-gashuki’ (‘Gauntlettii’) near the Engine House. The plant outside the front door had a flower a fortnight or so ago.

Uplifting the overhanging beech trees at Crinodendron Hedge.

Good autumn colour on an adjacent acer which will now have more light.

Camellia hiemalis ‘Bonanza’ tucked away above the Orchid House Nursery.

2020 – CHW
The Gingko biloba through the front arch.

Nice colours on a Hydrangea quercifolia.

Hilliers suggest that this is not just Camellia ‘Cornish Snow’ but ‘Cornish Snow Michael’ or ‘Michael’ (after Charlie Michael the head gardener here until 1956). ‘Michael’, they say, is a larger / the largest flowered form of ‘Cornish Snow’. It is certainly out four to six weeks before all our other old ‘Cornish Snow’ and I agree that the flower is bigger. Until I read Hilliers I had not heard this story or account before. We need to propagate from the two plants above the ‘George Blandford’.

Three Corokias with masses of different coloured fruits:

Corokia x virgata with orange ripe fruits (yellow before that).

Corokia x virgata ‘Sunsplash’ with red fruits.

Corokia buddleioides with masses of very dark red fruits.

We pick the solitary and first ever seedpod from the Mexican Magnolia tamaulipana. It did not break off easily but it was starting to brown off. It would appear to contain some seed for Asia to try to grow.

Wonderful new growth on one of our Eriobotrya deflexa appearing in November.

I tend to forget this second Lindera obtusiloba tucked away behind the Acer griseum.

Assorted fallen leaves under the Acer griseum which never seems to colour up much here. A few are orangy griseum leaves but they drop off as quickly as they turn and never make a show.

2019 – CHW
Salix udensis ‘Golden Sunshine’ produces golden autumn colours as well as genuinely yellow leaves in the spring and summer.

Glyptostrobus pensilis ‘Wooly Mammoth’ has reverted to its rather impressive autumnal or winter colours.

Magnolia obovata ‘Pink Flush’ has come on a lot in a week!

And the leaves which are left on Liriodendron chinense next door are a golden yellow. Some nearly perfectly so.

Sadly I was too late for the best show of Prunus ‘Shirotae’ on the drive. It was gorgeous in the sun a few days ago with red tints in the yellow leaves but now most are on the ground.

Jaimie did however do a rather better job a few days ago but still too late.

2018 – CHW
The dead Lithocarpus henryi has now been felled and logged. The sad demise from old age of an original, rare and perhaps record tree which was in its prime in the 1960s when first measured formally. The rings look more alive than the rotting trunk suggested when I photographed it a few days ago but the last live branches finally died in the summer drought. We thought about felling it first three years ago but allowed nature to take its course. I have been trying to obtain a replacement for some time but without success as yet although several new species of Lithocarpus have been added to the collection in the last 15 years.

The area now needs grubbing out of all stumps of old camellias to make a nice new planting
place.

2017 – CHW
Two extraordinary new things in the frames:Berberis xanthoclada with rich bright red autumn foliage. A new species to us. As red as it is possible to get I think but then I move on!

Then Salvia dombeyi full out. A wonderful thing which I have never seen in flower before. Quite staggering for late November. The tubular red flowers are 6-8in long with long dark calyxes. It is not in Hillier’s but Asia needs to propagate it fast! Not sure who gave us this? Asia may know?