A bad week, good plants.

Last week wasn't all wonderful. I won't go into details, but I'll just say that if you sometimes see the better side of human nature, there will definitely be times when you encounter selfishness and bad relationships.

I was eagerly waiting for Friday to attend the lecture by Simon Tumer, the head of the collections department at the Living Garden of the famous Kew Gardens in London. If you have a water tower in your garden, why not make it look like a castle from a fairy tale...?

My plan was simple:

I arrived at the event early, took a look at the garden, and then was supposed to attend the lecture. I was on site when the email came in with the information that the lecture had been canceled. That was the last confirmation of a week that I was glad to have behind me. At least I was in the garden, and it's always nice to be in a garden that you don't have to take care of.

Trelissick Estate in Cornwall

In the southwest corner of Great Britain, it is one of many old country houses in the area. The estate and garden were handed over to the National Trust decades ago, and the house itself was entrusted to them for use in 2012.

Cornwall is blessed with a rather mild climate. While the maritime climate brings many storms, the western part of the county is generally characterized by a mild and wet climate. It's the perfect climate for a variety of wonderful exotic species.

I would like to show you some plants that caught my attention.

A brief explanation about names: here I will use botanical names of plants and will also mention their common names, if they exist. If you are confident in your knowledge of plants, that's great, but if not, I promise I won't ask you about it! You can easily copy the name of the plant you are interested in and paste it into a search engine, and you will find more detailed information from your region.

• Magnolias, camellias, and rhododendrons thrive particularly well in the Cornish climate, as do hydrangeas and many other plants. Of course, there are plants that do not flourish here, such as echinaceas (coneflowers) from the central United States, which do not like the typically quite consistent humidity.
• The general trend of gardens in Cornwall is focused on spring interest. If you are considering visiting this part of the United Kingdom and want to see the gardens in their full glory, then April and May are usually the peak months.
• Of course, it's not inspiring when you arrive at the garden in December, especially after strong winds and heavy rain that caused a lot of damage in the region the day before. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many interesting and desirable plants during my visit.
• I doubt that "interesting" and "desirable" are words that most gardeners would use to describe aucubas. These plants have a reputation for being dull and unremarkable, at least for British gardeners. Usually, you see aucubas as "Spotted Laurels" with numerous bright yellow spots on their waxy leaves; I really find it hard to like these plants, although with some skillful placement, they can look good.
• Until recently, I shared a reflexive hatred for everything related to aucubas, but I have to keep an open mind when it comes to plants. Of course, the Aucuba japonica f. longifolia 'Salicifolia' at Trellisik struck me as a plant that I really liked. Such a long name deserves some explanation: 'f.' stands for form, and longifolia means that the plant has long or narrow leaves... so the name is broadly interpreted as "Aucuba japonica with long leaves," with "Salicifolia" meaning "with leaves resembling those of a willow" ("Salix-folia"). I certainly have never seen a willow with such leaves.

It's not a plant superstar, but it will work great as a background shrub. The foliage is appealing in a subtle way, and the short clusters of black flowers won't add much. Imagine this path lined with pink, red, and white flowers in the spring.

Camellias usually have a fairly universal appeal, even if we have our own preferences regarding the complexity or simplicity of the flowers.

It was interesting to see a few camellias blooming so early in the spring; I suspect that the unpredictable weather tricked some of them.

The autumn camellias were also blooming, although they suffered from the rain. It was casual to smell the flowers of the camellias to appreciate their fragrance. It was nice to see that the camellia "Generous Christmas Saint" (Camellia 'Yuletide') was in bloom, even if just to confirm my belief that it is not a very good camellia. I suspect it needs a long and warm summer to bloom beautifully. The flowers are nice, but there are few of them compared to the size of the plant. I am a big fan of the red-faced camellia called "Cardinal" (Camellia 'Crimson King'); it has larger flowers that appear more reliably and have a fragrance.

My superstar among camellias in the collection was a young Camellia transnokoensis plant. This wild species of camellia from Taiwan is quite different from the usual large, beautiful camellias. The specimen I saw in Trellisick was still not fully developed enough to show the tiered shape and slightly drooping branches of this species, but the charming bell-shaped white flowers, which are pink when they open, were so abundant.

The ivy family is an interesting group of plants. While English ivy, Hedera helix, is a problematic species in some areas of the USA, 'ivies' make up only a fraction of their botanical family. When a botanical family has a bad reputation, it is advisable to study its behavior in your region before planting.

Since I finished the conversation about camellias with the Taiwanese plant, I decided to start with two Taiwanese plants here. First, there is Tetrapanax papyrifer, also known as "rice paper." This name is not entirely accurate, as the paper made from the pith found in the stems of this plant is not the edible rice paper we are familiar with.

In the UK, this plant is a favorite among gardeners who grow warm-loving tropical plants. Young plants can have gigantic leaves, although in milder regions they often become multi-stemmed trees with much smaller leaves. Not unattractive, just smaller in size.

A lesser-known Taiwanese plant, although it is becoming increasingly recognized, is Fatsia polycarpa. This species of plant, known as "false plant oil," creates a widely spreading shrub with more deeply lobed foliage. This species is considered to be more winter-hardy than the more common Fatsia japonica.

Fatsia japonica was also found in Trellisick and was in bloom more than Fatsia polycarpa. It is usually sold as a houseplant but can grow outdoors in milder regions. I think this plant is about as winter-hardy as the culinary "Sweet Bay" or Laurus nobilis, so if you can grow it in your area, you shouldn't have any trouble growing Fatsia japonica. I'm not sure how much more frost-resistant Fatsia polycarpa is, just that it is grown in some parts of Europe where Fatsia japonica does not reliably winter.

X Fatshedera lizei is an intergeneric hybrid between Fatsia (Fats-) and ivy (Hedera). This is a plant that I don't encounter often, despite being a great choice as a useful shrub for dry shade. If it is not supported, it tends to lean towards the ground, but it can also spread underground or climb around something. It doesn't have the roots that ivy uses to attach to walls, so it won't cling on its own all the time.

The climate of Cornwall is ideal for Heptapleurum, trees with large leaves, which until recently were known as "Schefflera." If the climate allows, it is probably the perfect tree for a garden, enchanting in a forest; to say that its foliage is large is to underestimate it. I am particularly interested in Heptapleurum delavayi for its incredible flowering, but unfortunately, this plant will not thrive at my home. (When searching for this plant online, you might want to try looking for Schefflera delavayi.)

This is not the most frost-resistant camellia and may be particularly sensitive to cold winds, but in a sheltered spot in the garden, it seems to be more resilient to winter cold than expected for a mature plant.