Your Garden
THERE are many different magnolias available, both evergreen and deciduous to grow in cool climate gardens.
Early spring is when the deciduous ones come into their own, they are simply magnificent at present.
For simplicity let’s divide them into three groups, Evergreen-Star Flowering and Small Growing-Tulip and Cup and Saucer. M soulangeana, M stellata, M liliiflora and many hybrids make up the two deciduous groups.
Flower shapes and colours vary from small to huge and pale cream to vivid pink and purple, giving us a wonderful choice. Plant size also ranges from about 1.5 metres to 20m in height.
These trees and shrubs thrive in well drained soils with high organic matter, slight acidity and good moisture retention so good quality mulch is very beneficial. Flowers will be damaged if not protected from strong winds.
The Michelias should also be mentioned, they are relatives of Magnolias, these are evergreen with mostly perfumed blooms and are more shrubby and great for hedging.
Some have very strong heady perfume which could be overpowering if planted in quantity too close to areas used for outdoor entertainment, for example figo.
Scented Pearl is a lovely cultivar having bronze buds and backs of leaves as well as beautiful flowers. The Fairy Magnolia is another very useful garden variety.
The evergreen Magnolias are all cultivars of Magnolia grandiflora, varying in size from shrublike to very large trees, Baby Grande, Teddy Bear and Little Gem are examples at the smaller end of the spectrum with the Bull Bay the largest, Exmouth has beautiful bronze colour on the backs of leaves while still growing large. There are new cultivars emerging that may also be very useful.
If you don’t have one perhaps you have a space somewhere that needs filling.
