31st October | The Garden Diary

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CONTRIBUTORS:

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2024 – CHW

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ still with some colour near the top of the drive. What excellent value from this clump planted in 2009.

Metasequoia glyptostroboides ‘Amber Glow’ just starting to perform on the drive. Metasequoia ‘Gold Rush’ has yet to get this far.

Acer palmatum ‘Inazuma’ catches the sun. With us this variety is best in the autumn.

Cornus kousa ‘Doubloon’ is also especially good today beside ‘Inazuma’.

Strangely, after what we have seen elsewhere, there are as yet no flowers on the record sized clump of Camellia x williamsii outside the front gate.

As usual a few rogue flowers showing colour at the very top of a nearby Rhododendron ‘Cornish Red’.

The white Camellia sasanqua No. 2 now at its absolute best.

2023 – CHW
Hedychium coccineum flowers very late here. This is a Crug Farm form called ‘Was to Ziva’ which presumably refers to the site in which it was collected.

A bit of digger work here to do on the drive to prepare a decent sized new planting area for the spring.

Camellia sasanqua ‘Paradise Blush’ at its best just above Red Linney.

Jaimie has uplifted the Pseudopanax laetus near Donkey Shoe beside the ‘White Nun’s’.

The unnamed x williamsii camellias below Tin Garden are always a splendid early show and provide plenty of cut material for the church and house. A week ago nothing but, today, a decent show in the sun.

2022 – CHW
Daffodil planting in the Kitchen Garden last week (10,000 bulbs). Still a few more Malus varieties to arrive here before we can begin to set out the Malus planting plan based on ultimate size and shape etc.

Azalea luteum and Cotoneaster franchetii in the sun below the tower.

A few secondary flowers on Ceanothus ‘Trewithen Blue’.

5 new water butts for collecting and storing water in the garden for the next drought.

Camellia x williamsii ‘St Ewe’ showing colour but no flowers out quite yet. A couple of days away from the start.

Several Rhododendron ‘Cornish Reds’ with plenty of secondary flower.

Camellia ‘Gay Border’ and wasps in the sun and showers.

2021 – CHW
The tail end of the flowers on Hydrangea sargentiana with massive slug and snail attacks on its skeleton leaves. Rather magnolia-like.

The female flower cones are now even larger on Araucaria bidwillii. No sign of any male flowers so our tree is very probably a female.

Isla and Bea inspect the blueberries but the pheasants have eaten the lot already. The crab apples are not quite ripe either.

Serena, Katie and Neil with Lamorna strapped in for her first visit to the Isla Rose Plantation. All three grandchildren together!

2020 – CHW
Metasequoia glyptostroboides ‘Gold Rush’ with its autumn colours which are interesting but not that spectacular.

Pseudopanax laetus with its tiny white flowers not quite yet open. I watched a video today in John Marston’s garden near Barnstaple and this plant was out. Similar purple-black ivy-like seedpods replace the flowers. The flower heads look much like the seed heads in reality.

Also in John’s garden was Rostrincula dependens with mauve-bluish tinged pink flowers. This prompted me to have a look at ours which has a more reddish-pink hue but it was over with plenty of seeds forming along the flower spikes. Asia has grown these in the past. This is a buddleia like small woody shrub which is tender in colder areas but worth its position for its September to October show of flowers. It seems to be gaining in popularity judging by the sell-out of the Burncoose stock this year.

Caroline Bell thinks our Camellia sasanqua (No. 5 through the arch) may be the same as a C. sasanqua which won a first-class certificate at an RHS show on 13th December 1892 when exhibited by Messrs Veitch. A page from The Garden dated 7th October 1893 is attached. When the flowers are out more fully we will be able to try a proper comparison although exact colours will never probably match perfectly.

2019 – CHW
A gift of a new magnolia hybrid from Egbert Talsma in the Netherlands. I attach his letter to me and a couple of photographs of the plant which he has bred. It looks a very good colour and will find a very good place in the garden in the spring. ‘Jebbe Talsma’ will be a bit of a tongue twister of a name for us to remember.

2018 – CHW
Camellia oleifera is now out too. It was showing colour a week or two ago.

Quite an autumn show on Quercus palustris ‘Flaming Suzy’.

And on a young Stewartia monodelpha in the sun and east wind.

Camellia sasanqua ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ full out above the greenhouse. A remarkable show in the sun.

2017 – CHW
Lots of buds still coming out on Magnolia ‘Star Wars’. An amazingly prolific tree and a UK Record Tree too.

Nicely contrasting autumn colours on Magnolia ‘Summer Solstice’.

Firmania simplex leaves badly eaten by slugs. I fear this plant is too tender for us.

2016 – CHW
Jaimie’s team have cleared through Kennel Close, re-staking, removing wires and tidying up for the spring. It all looks good and the plants do too.

In the process they have found a Cornus kousa with huge fruits on just one limb and a Magnolia ‘March till Frost’ with plenty of secondary flowers.

2015 – CHW

Americans shooting today with what looks like a couple of Russians on the list. Cannot wait!

Time is short so just a touch of autumn colour for you today:

Halesia carolina (Snowdrop Tree) is not billed as anything special as regards autumn colour but this plant does turn quickly yellow before the leaves go brown. In fact you can see all three phases of autumn on the same branch. No seed yet on this young tree.

Touching it is Cornus nuttallii ‘Pink Blush’ which I did not see in flower this year but which does indeed have rather splendid mixed autumn colour for a cornus. A very columnar growth habit which is just as well as the halesia is spreading fast.

The centurion clump of Rhododendron schlippenbachii has an unexpectedly splendid autumn colour which I have not noticed or appreciated before in younger plants. Across the path is the equally deciduous Rhododendron albrectii which offers nothing.

Hidden away behind these deciduous rhododendron species is another which I had forgotten. A large plant of Rhododendron mucronulatum which came as a bare root plant from Edward Needham at Tregye many years ago. An odd and irascible man who spent much time collecting in the Himalayas. There are two similar plants at Burncoose from the same era which have much lighter pink flowers than the Caerhays originals. Unlike the old plant featured last week this one has a full flush of dark flowers. You might argue that this is not a second flowering but actually an early flowering. However I would argue that the colour is not the same as it will be after Christmas so it must be a secondary flush of flower albeit of some size.

1987 – FJW
October a miserable month – Iran, Stock Exchange, hurricane in south of England. Wakehurst, Exbury, Wisley, Kew very badly HIT.