2026 – CHW
Our autumn 2025 new planting above the drive isn’t too bad. Magnolias have shed leaves but only one obvious dead. Still a Goretti sycamore to clean up but it is not really in the way.
The trunk on our largest Betula insignis subsp. fansipanensis (now Betula kweichowensis subsp. fansipanensis).
A recently fallen Sorbus in the early flowering deciduous azaleas.
Davidia involucrata ‘Sonoma’ has survived the drought well.
A forgotten Magnolia ‘Mighty Mouse’ and a rather larger plant than our other one.
Two Goretti smashed Rhododendron ‘Tally Hoo’. One is now starting to reshoot but the other is dead and needs digging out.
Hydrangea ‘Fireworks Pink’ is an odd colour after the drought.
Another smashed Magnolia reshooting well.
The pampas grass on the 3 islands needs burning as trimming is becoming more difficult as you can see. No wasps nests found on the islands this year.
2025 – CHW
Euonymus tingens still unripe.
Viburnum coriaceum now in full flower.
Magnolia sieboldii with ripe seeds.
Root suckers from Paulownia tomentosa ‘Lilacina’ have grown 6 feet in a year.
And the flower buds on the mother plant are nearly out, as they often have been in the autumn, on this plant.
No fruits on Cornus hongkongensis.
Ripening seed pods on Enkianthus serrulatus.
This orange fungus seems only to grow on fallen magnolia branches under large mature leaves.
2024 – CHW
Multiple seed heads colouring up on Viburnum fansipanense (BSWJ 8302).
Multiple seed heads colouring up on Viburnum fansipanense (BSWJ 8302).
And on Viburnum coriaceum.
Ross Collins (at long last) has started work today in the Aucklandii Garden with Kel Murray now doing the tree surgery work. The primary objective is to remove a monster Turkey Oak which threatens anyone parking or standing outside the Back Yard nearest the gardens. As with many Turkey Oaks aged around 100-120 or so years, its time is up. The base has bleeding cankers and obvious Phytophthora infections, as you see in declining and decaying old trees. It has also recently developed a downward lean so it is time to act. It will leave a huge wind hole!
Today they felled a 32 year old (I counted the rings) Abies grandis which I only planted in 1992. It has grown exponentially but died, I assume, as a result of the last two dry summers. The stump still very much alive but the crown shattered as it hit the ground and was obviously dead. I planted this tree to replace a similar Abies, which grew in much the same place, was a triangulation point for the local fisherman (or so it was said). The old tree was perhaps 120 feet tall. The felled youngster perhaps 60-70? In my mind I thought I had planted the tree 10 or more years earlier after the whirlwind that destroyed all the Rhododendron aucklandii in around 1977 or 1978. Perhaps I need to go and count the tree rings again!
2023 – CHW
The first pale pink 120 year old Camellia sasanqua is suddenly just out today in the sun. A good 2-3 weeks earlier than I have ever see it out. A first in September!
Malus ‘Indian Magic’ in the Kitchen Garden with secondary flowers and fruit.
Time for a proper look at the fruiting Malus!
Pampas grass on the islands flowering away.
Electric charging points being installed at Porthluney Beach car park.
In the early spring we dug out some old camellia stumps. Where we cut into the roots of a nearby Paulownia root suckers have appeared everywhere.
2022 – CHW
Welcome rain again yesterday and remarkably good new growth on the Rhododendron ‘Harrow Hybrids’ which looked so ghastly only 3 weeks ago.
Welcome rain again yesterday and remarkably good new growth on the Rhododendron ‘Harrow Hybrids’ which looked so ghastly only 3 weeks ago.
Just a few shoots still alive after the drought on Ribes ‘White Icicle’.
Not many of our older beech trees have a proper crop of seeds like this in a drought year. The squirrels will soon find them!
Orange berries just starting to show up Cotoneaster conspicuus.
Hoya carnosa in the greenhouse.
Our seed grown Puya have moved on from being tiny seedling plugs to decent plants in less than 12 months.
No flower colouring (or leaf as yet) on this large Hydrangea quercifolia. Just dead flower panicles after the drought.
A decent secondary flower on Magnolia ‘March-til-Frost’.
And on Magnolia ‘Yakeo’.
Not quite out yet on Magnolia ‘Cleopatra’.
2021 – CHW
Buddleia forrestii in flower by the garden entrance. White buds turning pinkish when they open with pink centres to the flowers when open.
Buddleia forrestii in flower by the garden entrance. White buds turning pinkish when they open with pink centres to the flowers when open.
To give more light to the river and because the area was full of dead elm and dying ash we sought a felling licence to clear the bottom of the Portholland Valley below Parnalls Hill Wood. The licence did not arrive on time due to COVID so work only started a month ago. We have retained all the mature oak trees and some of the best mature hollies. Some of the stumps will regenerate and we will consider replanting later. Natural regeneration may be adequate.
These pictures show part of the old pumping system which pumped water up the hill to serve Caerhays and Portholland villages and neighbouring farms until the mid-1960s when mains water arrived. There were a series of lagoons in the river which fed water to gravity fed water pumps or rams. You can see some of these here but the system had three other similar ram sheds which still exist today further down the river towards Portholland. As a small child I used to go (in a Simca van) with Jim Trudgeon (farm manager) down the Portholland road where we would stop and listen to hear if the rams were all working. Often they were not and quick action was needed. This was a time of outdoor privies and few houses had bathrooms. Still fewer had washing machines. The requirement for water in households was rather less than it is today.
