Although the preparations for our usual stand at Hampton Court Flower Show continue it is quite surprising what is actually in flower in the garden now. We tend to assume that Cornish Woodland Gardens are waist high in brambles and ‘trash’ (as we call it) at this time of the year and not worth a visit.

 

Certainly we are only 3 weeks into the 9 or 10 weeks it will take to cut the vegetation (we do not have lawns in a woodland setting) right through the 30 acre gardens at Burncoose but that does not mean that we do not have anything out in flower.

 

Sadly the first of my summer RHS lectures about summer flowering woodland trees had to be cancelled due to lack of interest (plus a lunch with David Cameron) but that too misses the point.

 

Styrax japonica is just showing colour although this year it is 3 weeks or more late. There is one ancient and two 30 year old specimens in the garden. They have a multitude of white hanging snowdrop-like flowers which are a mecca for bees and other insects.

 

The Chilean Lomatia ferruginea with its yellow and red trusses of lobster claw blooms is also just coming into flower and, without too much hot weather, may yet be a real wow for Hampton Court on our stand.

 

One of the real joys of the summer is Rhododendron ‘Polar Bear’; an auriculatum hybrid which is always the last rhododendron to flower in the season. The giant white trusses of flowers are heavily scented but often carried within the spread of the shrub rather than being obvious at the end of individual branches. This is why you can often smell ‘Polar Bear’ long before you can actually see it. This is particularly true in the evenings when there are more insects around and scent wafts further.

 

Stewartia rostrata has large flat opening white flowers with a hint of pink which complements the hint of red in the adjacent new growth. An excellent summer flowering tree which has a full write up in this quarter’s edition of the RHS ‘Plantsman’.

 

For evening scent nothing quite matches the American Magnolia grandiflora and the Chinese Magnolia delavayi. Both are evergreen, both flower here and there from summer well on into Autumn and both are often grown up against the walls of houses so that the owners can benefit from the scent which the plants emit to attract pollinating moths in the evening. A gin and tonic and a Magnolia delavayi are something special!

 

 

 Woodland Gardens are perhaps not as boring and overgrown in summer you might imagine!

 

At Burncoose we often get asked (in June and July) where all the camellias and rhododendrons, for which we are well known, actually are? Visitors also complain that we do not cut (and manicure) our grass as they would expect!

 

If we started cutting the trash in May we would firstly, have to do it twice each summer and secondly, and rather more importantly, we would kill off all the bluebells, primroses and other wild flowers which have not yet died down and set seed.

 

Yes there is still a Camellia mothotiana ‘Rubra’ in flower as we near July and yes Rhododendron didydum is probably at its best but it is a rockery sized rhododendron and nearly swamped by the trash.

 

Thankfully we still have plenty of moisture in the ground so drought seems unlikely.