Wednesday 3rd.

Walking round the garden with John & Alison Pryce-Jones, having noted the profusion of flowering and scent on the very large Daphne bholua Jacqueline Postill, I spotted that Maurice’s Camellia pitardii ‘Alba’ was in full flower and with just as powerful a scent as the Daphne.

                Camellia pitardii var. alba (which Maurice Foster collected)

Although it is an early bloomer,  it seems to be two to three weeks in advance this year, like most of the plants in the garden.  We have had gales and continue to have heavy rain, but mild. I also noticed that my beautiful Magnolia ernestii nearby has a couple of branches with buds on broken off. This Magnolia has not flowered for several years, but has decided to flower on the side of the tree facing west where the enormous Larch was. I had hoped that taking the Larch down and letting light in would encourage it to flower. This appears to have happened, but unfortunately we will lose some precious flowering branches this Spring.

Sunday 7th.

Sunny but very cold easterly wind and temperature only 5 deg C, but out of wind in sunshine not too bad. Yesterday, I went to St John’s G.C. and bought Euonymus hamiltonianus Popcorn - impulse buy as I love white arls with red seeds inside, (like E. ‘Koi Boy’ but more vigorous) and I planted it where the enormous Embothrium had come down. While at the garden centre, I saw a whole lot of Camellia Cupido plants together and this gave me an idea for a sort of mass planting of them because of their wild fountain like habit. I moved the big plant to where the other one is growing, and if I get a third I can make a group under the Acer rufinerve var. erythrocladum. My Euonymus awareness came from seeing evergreen Euonymus lucidus still covered with orange seed capsules.

Friday 26th.

Decided to cut down my 20 yr old Picea omorika ‘Pendula’ because it has been a very untidy weird grower in a prominent place as you enter the garden. I was seduced by a strictly upright specimen in John Smith’s garden but later realised it was so straight because it had been trained up a telegraph pole. Very effective, but even trying to pull it upright with a long stake failed. The last straw was when I saw it in a public park in Sousa, Italy where it had leaned across half the park. It still took two years to pluck up courage to cut it down, but at last the deed is done and it looks much better.

                            There in the morning

                            Gone by evening

The sun was out for the day a brief break from the incessant rain, and the birds were singing loudly and some of the plants also thought Spring had come.  Dick Fulcher’s rhododendron which turned out to be R.spinuliferum in now coming out.

The flowers are a tomato red and such a weird shape.