Friday 5th.

Fantastic flowering of the roses especially, but also the later flowering chestnuts. The still small Aesculus indica Sydney Pearce is full of flower as is Aesculus californica which has developed a strange appearance with a vigorous shoot sticking out sideways. I will have to try pruning as it distorts the otherwise perfectly symmetrical tree. Abelia (now Metabelia) floribunda is absolutely dripping with flowers. All this has been happening while I have been at ground level trying to keep up with weeding  - not a hope really, but OK in selected areas. Phenomenal growth all round. Sun and warmth beginning to build today as the Azores high moves in at last.

                                            Rose William Lobb

                                      Aesculus indica Sydney Pearce

Wednesday 10th.

Continuing extremely hot (29C last few days) and now drying out - starting to water newly planted trees/shrubs which is something (the only thing?) I haven’t had to do for at least two years. Last Sunday, visited Wisley before heading home from a concert in Fleet, and it was looking very good. I called by Desert to Jungle before Taunton and saw two excellent plants of Jubaea chilensis, so I think I will buy them to replace the tatty specimens of Phoenix roebellii which barely got through the winter in the greenhouse. The larger of the two looks dead in the middle, so I will remove them to somewhere else. The Judas tree now looks half dead, though sprouting lower down, and with Sorbus harrowiana I think was killed in the bud by our cold easterly persistent wind in Feb/March. I sawed the Judas tree to main branches and hope the Sorbus might recover by sprouting lower down.

                                          Judas tree severely lopped

Saturday 13th.

Yesterday I wanted to plant my favourite canna ‘Australia’ - I had three small plants- so I made a forward bulging extension to the dahlia bed in front of the Turkish tent. The searing temperatures and rather dry ground were not the best time to make a bed or plant anything, but anyway, I managed. Not sure of the result so today, took the ‘black grass’ from behind the bulge and made a border in front with it. It doesn’t look too bad. Not only did I make the bed there but I replaced the rather tatty Phoenix roebellii palms with the two Jubaeas that I succumbed and bought from Desert to Jungle on Thursday. They are excellent plants and I dug in a lot of compost, so hope they will get going. Watering watering.

Tuesday 16th.

I received two excellent plants of Richea dracophylla from Architectural Plants by courier today, and have planted one in the new woodland walk. I will keep the other in a pot and overwinter in the greenhouse as an insurance. I also moved the Richea pandanifolia I collected in Tasmania to the same area as it did nothing in the dry hot alpine bed in spite of watering. The Richeas were growing in eucalyptus forest, so I hope they will be happier in woodland. I also moved Telopea mongaensis - my only surviving seedling which is a bit rash - to the same area, but again, it will be happier in the woodland soil than the alpine bed (if it survives..)

Sunday 21st.

Garden open this afternoon, 41 visitors (and 6 children from the Summer Club). Very hot and getting humid (29C), looking forward to some thunder storms and RAIN. Not for two more days it seems. Many plants loving it though. The New Zealand weeping broom Chordospartium stevensonii is covered with flowers.

                                               

                                           Close-up of the flowers

Thursday 25th.

At last, got the chain saw out as it is a bit cooler following last night’s decent rain. I sawed down the Cornus kousa chinensis I planted 30 years ago which was beginning to look unhealthy after a fantastic flowering two years ago. It is a prime site, so I will think of what to put in its place.

Also the red flowered Witch Hazel near by which suddenly died last year for no apparent reason, I also chopped down. There are several rather desperate looking plants after this drought which I am also going to have to remove. I hope the rain forecast for the next few days will drag some back from the brink.

                                            Stump of Cornus Kousa