MAGNIFICENT MAGNOLIAS

I love spring flowers and shrubs, with the sunny splash of yellow forsythia, drifts of cheerful daffodils and the magnificent magnolias, all heralding the promise of longer days and better weather. Thanks to the lack of Jack Frost’s meddling this year, the magnolias are particularly stunning. Quite often they bloom in all their glory just to have their delicate white flowers scorched brown by the harsh winds or frosts. Not this year.

Magnolias are among the earliest flowering trees in evolutionary terms and were growing in Europe, America and Asia over 100 million years ago. Most of them need a lot of space with the biggest ones reach a towering 15m (50ft), but urban gardeners can grow magnolias too, if they choose a relatively petite one like the shrubby white Magnolia stellata, which grows to a mere 3m (10ft). The stellata’s have the little star-shaped flowers, hence their name, and the larger, blousier magnolias are the soulangiana’s, with their large, tulip shaped blooms. I hate seeing these larger shrubs hacked and deformed to fit into a garden that is just not big enough for them, so please do your homework and find the right sized magnolia (or any shrub) for your plot.

Kew have reported that their magnolia displays are the best for 10 years and Bodnant Gardens in Conwy has more than 500 magnolias in its 80 acres of garden, many of them ancient specimens which thrive in sheltered areas of the borders and the dell.

For more information contact www. nationaltrust.org.uk/bodnant-garden