On Monday a visit to Tregrehan to exchange Schima, Torreya and rhododendron cuttings for cuttings of 15 new camellia species for Caerhays. Most were either wild collected by Tom himself or by others also in the wild.
Here are the rest of things we saw along the way:
A quince with the most enormous fruits that I have ever seen fan trained on a wall. A Cydonia rather than a Chaenomeles.
Hedychium thrysiforme in the greenhouse. Needs heat in winter but attractive.
Osmanthus fragrans var. aurantiacus – the yellow/orange form rather than the white flowering one. Growing here in the greenhouse and tenderish but a large shrub or small tree with sweet scent.
Passiflora edulis with delicious ripe fruit. The ones I photographed recently in the nursery have yet to turn black and ripe like this.
Talauma hodgsonii – magnolia like but too tender for us outdoors.
Lysionotis in full flower in the conservatory. An autumn flowering herbaceous plant but clearly very tender.
Mallotus japonicus which looks very different to the one I photographed at Ventnor. Perhaps Edwina could send Tom these pictures to compare from the last two years. It was in flower last year and this.
Styrax limprichtii is a suckering shrub with seeds in pairs and lovely undersides to the leaves. We collect a few. Not yet in the Caerhays collection.
The ‘true’ tea plant is in flower already – Camellia sinensis. Rather different to the Caerhays plant supposedly with the same name on Burns Bank.
Camellia brevistyla from Taiwan is also already in flower. We may have lost this one spring in cold east wind.
Camellia trichocarpa was one of the best species we saw in terms of bark and foliage. The flowers were superb in the spring as well. This seed is not yet ripe (sadly).
Hedychium gardnerianum but not exactly like ours here. I need to do more research into Hedychiums.
