19th September | The Garden Diary

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CONTRIBUTORS:

FJW 1955-2007

CHW 2015-

JCW 1897-1939

CW 1940-1955

2024 – CHW

Clerodendrum bungei at its best in Tin Garden.

A young Magnolia ‘F. J. Williams’ planted only in 2019 is covered in bud.

Tin Garden planting is mainly now 5 years old and huge growth this year. All the young magnolias are well budded.

A young clump of Rhododendron ‘Yellow Hammer’ full of flower.

Cornus oblonga (a gift from Fromefield) living up to its name with its leaf shape. Reddish secondary new growth.

Early autumn colour on Prunus ‘Kursar’ planted in 2009. I have not noticed this as being rather good until now in the sun.

2023 – CHW
Camellias in flower in the nursery tunnels today.Camellia ‘Polar Ice’.

Young plants of the same ancient Camellia sasanqua which we saw out at Caerhays 3 days ago.

Camellia ‘Sundae’ (a japonica variety).

Camellia ‘Snow Flurry’.

Camellia sasanqua ‘Rainbow’.

Tibouchina urvilleana and Tweedia caerulea out together.

Viburnum setigerum covered in seeds.

2022 – CHW

A strange weekend as the whole country prepares for todays state funeral for H.M. The Queen. Its, quite rightly, a bank holiday so we are all glued to the television. At Churchill’s state funeral in 1965 I remember Dad standing to attention in front of a black and white TV in the Red Room for hours. I also remember running and catching a moorhen by Noah’s Ark and bringing it home in a hessian bag as proof. Dad not impressed even though it wasn’t bad for an 8 year old.. Strange memories but we all have them.

All travel plans and planned business meetings in chaos as a result of the funeral. My brother and I were scheduled to meet George Eustice (the Burncoose MP) for a chat on Saturday but this turned into a zoom meeting and I missed it and so did he. George is no longer the longstanding Secretary of State for Agriculture etc. so it was to a be a fuller and franker discussion than it might have been before Liz Truss, who was sworn in as Prime Minister at Balmoral only 2 days before the Queen died and sacked George when she won the ballot of Conservative party members over Rishi Sunak.

Over the weekend I write a letter of condolence on behalf of the family and the estate to H.M. King Charles III who first visited Caerhays (as Prince Charles) when he was a young naval officer and has visited several times since. Dad was on the Duchy Council for 19 years .

Tears all round for most of the day and quite a bit of standing to attention as in 1965. I write this in the hope that readers of this family garden diary (which started in 1897) will, in another 72 years, begin to understand the sadness, anguish and sense of loss which we all feel at Caerhays today at the end of monarchs reign.
God Save the King!

Just a few plants to look at, of course, on this day (and previous week) of mourning and sadness at the end of an era.

Podocarpus matudae showing drought stress on it leaves but with plenty of blue podocarps.

The first flowering that we have seen of a newly planted Mahonia fortunei ‘Winter Prince’. Orange buds opening yellow which tells us a bit about its parentage.

Young plants of Mallotus japonicus have positively enjoyed the drought and grown on well this summer. Proper flowering this year. I have admired a tree at Ventnor for 20 years and now we are on the way to having the same, although ours are flowering rather later in the year than the Ventnor tree.

2021 – CHWThe Pinus wallichiana (a show stock plant which had visited Chelsea more than once) had been looking a bit sick last year after planting and after the cold in February. Now getting going and looking well.

An odd mixture of Cotoneaster horizontalis on a wall covered in part by Vitis coignetiae.

A supposedly short service and debate in Gorran church about the major parish reorganisation proposed by the diocese and the deanery. The new structure is shown in this chart. Three hours door to door!

Caerhays parish is currently joined with St Goran (and Gorran Haven), and we have a formerly retired, but excellent, part time vicar until November 2022. Thereafter we are told that there will be two vicars spread over eight parishes.

Our two deanery delegates have to vote on this for us on 29th September. No time for proper discussion at the parochial council meetings of course on this bizarre geographic mix. If the overall proposal is rejected at the deanery vote we are told that the diocese will impose it anyway. Such is church ‘democracy’.Only six of the eighteen parishes pay their Ministry & Mission Fund (MMF) levy to the diocese/deanery in full. Caerhays and Gorran have always paid their full MMF levy to help pay for our clergy (£25k per annum). So, this is all about money. The diocese say each vicar costs £53k per annum.

Nevertheless, the church is investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in new centres of worship in new buildings in Penryn and St Austell and selling vicarages to pay for it. This is the woke element of the Church of England. A new beginning for some in towns and the total abandonment of ministry in rural areas. (Quite how St Austell gets paired with Fowey seems bizarre.)

The deanery will not say if our vicarage is to be sold. Nor will it say which others will be sold.

The treasurer of Gorran parochial church council has proposed to the deanery and bishop that we have one vicar for a new grouping of Caerhays, Gorran, St Ewe and Mevagissey parishes. St Mewan is, in reality, a suburb of St Austell and Roche is miles away.

A lengthy speech in defence of the deanery reorganisation is made by one Gorran churchwarden. When the vote came, he was the only one to vote for it.

The vote against the proposals was around twenty with three abstentions. Many churchgoers were on holiday while others had simply no time to learn of this dramatic change.

In the Church of England church attendances are, we are told, falling by 2% per annum. Vicarless churches and the (unnecessary) pandemic closure of all churches has helped this enormously. Now we are to be permanently vicarless how will the position improve?

So, a new reformation of the church is upon us. Once the vicarages have gone, church closures will of course be next. The fat bureaucrats of the dioceses and their expensive advisors and consultants (£212k in Truro diocese on a turnover of £1.8m) can only be paid for by sales of church properties. Enormous wealth being used to preserve bureaucrats at the expense of the church structure and worshippers overall.

One might well ask, as several did, where ‘God’ might be in all this? The Church of England has not time for rural belief!

The abolition of the separate church law would be a good start from this government in cutting absurd Church of England bureaucracy. Merging the bishoprics of Truro and Exeter along historic lines to pay for more vicars would be another popular cost cutting move.

The most absurd element of this reorganisation was that the diocese instructed vicars in the spring lockdown to consult (online) non churchgoers for their views. Consulting churchgoers themselves was, naturally, avoided until the very last moment in this disgraceful fait accompli of ‘change’.

My guess is we will end up paying a retired vicar to take our services and reduce our contributions to the MMF accordingly in the future. Others are clearly thinking on similar lines.

2020 – CHW
Late yesterday evening I found Rhododendron ‘Yaku Fairy’ doing its secondary stuff in the Rockery.

Malus ‘Golden Hornet’ with a better crop of fruits than the other fruiting varieties in the nursery.

Dregia sinensis in full flower in the climber tunnel. I saw this out at Tregrehan growing through a camellia in late July.

Nearly ripe fruit on Passiflora caerulea which is unusual in a potted plant in the nursery but perhaps not after such a hot summer.

Camellia sinensis (cuttings from Tregrehan two years ago) already well into flower in our own greenhouse. Slow growing but covered in bud. Quite different to what we have known here as C. sinensis on Burns Bank but this is a wide ranging species.

Seed heads on Illicium macranthum (BSWJ 11809) in the frame. Did I photograph the flowers?

This is what the autumn colour should look like on Disanthus cercidifolius if I could ever get it to grow properly here. Two out of the three most recent plantings have yet again died. This plant was held back in the frames to go out next spring.

2019 – CHW
Second grass cut now well underway and the three islands on the lake have just been strimmed.

Ross and Kel have now removed all the branches from the beech tree which had split down the middle and was a danger to visitors. It will finally come down tomorrow.

An early hint of red on some of the younger leaves on Quercus buckleyi.

As usual the yellow autumn colours on Cladastris kentuckea have appeared early. The colour may be all gone by early October. Twenty-nine years from planting and still no flowers yet! Slow growing but excellent in the autumn.

Staphylea pinnata has also turned bronze all over already and very few ‘bladders’ this year due to the hot summer. It is in full sun here.

Loads of still unripe seeds on Styrax serrulatus which we must remember to gather later as this is a real rarity.

Conversely Staphylea colchica is only just starting to turn to its autumn colours and there are plenty of ripening bladdernuts on display.

2018 – CHW
A Photinia villosa comparison session. We did this once before in the diary but the plants have developed a lot since then.Photinia villosa var. coreana with more berries than ever seen before. Absolutely covered in fruit.

The more common Photinia villosa var. laevis is far less heavily laden and markedly different although the shape of the plant is similar with a spreading branched habit.

Photinia villosa var. zollingeri has much redder berries in much sparser clusters and a far more upright habit here.

Three very different forms of supposedly the same deciduous species. They all seem to be becoming small trees and we can now have a go at growing them all. Laevis and zollingeri are however growing a bit too close together for them not to have crossed up together in flower. The bees would have been busy in May.

2017 – CHW
Today an inspection of the Kennel Close plantings from 2017. Ten years on there is much to see.What has suddenly massacred two new clumps of Hedychium gardnerianum planted out here from the main bed by the playhouse in the spring? Last week they were fine in flower but now shattered. What has done this? Roe deer, pheasants or rabbits? The pheasants have clearly pecked the exposed tubers but I doubt they could have felled the whole spikes. It looks a bit rough for rabbit damage. Large crushing teeth were involved here not nibbling. Since another clump 300 yards away deep in the garden is smashed too I strongly suspect deer. They would have a hard time getting to the main clump at the playhouse area because of the walls. I wonder if deer like the ginger smell of these ginger lilies?

Interrupted by a phone call! More tomorrow.

2016 – CHW
Bulls at rest by the Top Lodge. The charolais is a nasty bastard and has had his moments both with Hamish on the farm and on shooting days.

The huge clump of Hydrangea paniculata (pure) has faded and gone over in three weeks. Now a dull greenish hue with the odd spot of pink. You can easily see where all the paniculata hybrids have sprung from.

I photographed this rhododendron in flower last year but still have no idea what it is. These secondary flowers have some split corollas. Above the pheasant pen below Donkey Shoe.

2015 – CHW
Some really dull seeds discovered today which are not yet ripe:The rare Ilex spinigera with long drooping branches.

An even rarer symplocos whose species is unknown

Unexpectedly the Olearia solandrii still has some flower. One normally thinks of this as a winter foliage plant but it does have tiny white flowers in profusion which one tends not to notice as the lovely green and yellow new growth appears.

Saw yet another big deer just above the Auklandii Garden even though Kerry was working nearby. The dogs were too busy eating a dead squirrel to bother to go in pursuit.

1971 – FJW
The Prince visited his tenants and left after some supper but I had been driven in an Aston Martin.