Carminowe Valley roses
Sally Holmes has looked stunning all summer – but now she’s in need of some beauty sleep. This ravishing rambling rose, with flowers the colour of clotted cream, must take a break from blooming if she is to be at her best again next June.
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Cornish roses
Rows and rows of roses have made a magnificent multicoloured patchwork this summer, in a field on the edge of a Cornish village. Yet in nearby supermarkets and garden centres, local people and holidaymakers are celebrating special occasions by growing roses grown in Africa and South America.
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Cotehele: mistletoe and wassail
There will be much carousing and banging of drums in the orchards at Cotehele seven days before Christmas. This traditional wassail ceremony is all about encouraging the trees to produce a good crop of apples next year, says head gardener David Bouch, with a smile.
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Heligan camellias
When the first camellias came to Cornwall, on board 18th century merchant ships, they were thought to be so fragile that they could only survive if they were pampered in expensive glasshouses. The early enthusiasts who tended their treasures so carefully would be amazed to discover that, more than 200 years later, these apparently delicate plants have become the showpieces of countless Cornish gardens, great and small.
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Kea plums
The lichen-covered trees in the old orchards around Coombe Creek are laden with dark, damson-like fruit. Nick Coley gives one of the trees a good shake. You can’t hurry a Kea plum – but on this sunny August afternoon, the fruit is fully ripe, and ready to tumble down onto the sheet Nick has spread on the grass.
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Magnolias
The new year was just three days old when the first magnolias of the season burst into bloom at Caerhays Castle – almost two months ahead of their normal flowering time. Charles Williams, owner of the estate, described the sight as “quite staggering”.
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Micropropogation
A majestic rhododendron tree which bears masses of spectacular white blooms has been a springtime delight at Trewithen Gardens for decades. This gorgeous giant is the tallest of its kind in the British Isles – but it is now more than 100 years old, and even Champion Trees don’t live forever.
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National Clematis Collection
Charlie Brown is in the naughty corner. But the eye-catching clematis with the flamboyant bright pink blooms will soon be ready to be replanted in the garden at Roseland House.
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National Dahlia Collection
Mike Mann gazes across a garden full of gorgeous dahlias. “People often say to me: ‘Which is your favourite?’” he says. “I can genuinely say that it’s one of the most difficult questions I ever have to answer.” And that’s hardly surprising. As manager of the National Dahlia Collection, Mike has more than 1,750 varieties to choose from.
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Sconner Wood Christmas trees
On the last day of November, seven years ago, springer spaniel puppy Holly came to live with the Carpenter family in their woodland home in a hidden valley in south-east Cornwall. The next day, tranquil Sconner Wood was transformed, when the gates opened for the sale of hundreds of Christmas trees.
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Tregothnan Christmas trees
Every December, families from all over Cornwall flock to Tregothnan in search of the perfect Christmas tree. There are plenty there to choose from. The great estate on the banks of the Fal doesn’t just boast the county’s largest historic garden, and Britain’s only tea plantation. It also has 10 acres of woodland planted with eight different varieties of conifer.
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Tremough rhododendrons
A magician once worked in the walled garden at Tremough. His name was Richard Gill, and he conjured up hundreds of new rhododendron hybrids from plants sent to Cornwall from the Himalayas. Gill was head gardener to the Shilson family, Victorian owners of the 100-acre estate near Falmouth, who were friends of the great plant hunter Joseph Hooker.
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Willow Christmas decorations
Holly and ivy adorn the wreath above the granite fireplace, and wigwams which were used in the spring to support growing plants are now hung with fir cones and cinnamon sticks. In this quaint Cornish cottage, there’s not a bauble in sight.
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