Magnolia misery

How sentimental do you get about your plants?

I know I'm utterly hopeless about mine. It is one of the reasons why my garden has never made the metamorphosis into Proper Garden: attempts at designing it have always been waylaid by a hopeless incontinence where plants are concerned, compelling me to reject the beautifully-designed composition of three or four carefully-chosen varieties in favour of the current hodgepodge of one plant here, one plant there and another one I couldn't resist shoehorned in between. I really should know better.

And I also get terribly attached to individual plants. Take my magnolia, for example. I got it while I was still in my last house in south-west London, as one of those freebie offers you get from magazines: not knowing any better at the time, I thought to myself, "Ah! 50p for a magnolia! that's good value!" and sent off for it.

The resulting 6" high twig needed mollycoddling to an absurd degree: I kept it in a pot for the first five years as it was so small I daren't risk losing it in my rumbustious borders. I finally dared to plant it out when we first moved here, by which time it was a more confidence-inspiring three feet tall or so, popping it into a corner of my front garden just outside my living room window. So that dates it: a tad short of 9 years ago, and the plant itself is about 14 years old.

Not long afterwards, it put out its first tentative flower, and I discovered for the first time that the rather unduly optimistic label it came with, which declared it a Magnolia liliiflora 'Susan' with rich burgundy-red flowers, it was in fact a Magnolia stellata with spidery white flowers. This came as some surprise, but rather a pleasant one.

It has been improving its display every year since: plants seem so grateful to you when you rescue them from an uncertain beginning and nurse them back to the point where they can do what they were born to do. Last year my little twig hit the majestic height of about 6ft and in April and May was a riotous fireworks display of flowers that took my breath away every time I looked at it.

But oh, dear: just look at it this year. My poor lovely magnolia.



It did manage a handful of spidery flowers, but they were tinged with brown and quickly died off. This was my only - and most heart-breaking - frost casualty this year.

I couldn't bring myself to write her off so left the apparently dead remains in the border. Then I was rootling around doing the weeding about a month ago and realised all is not lost.

It looks a little peculiar: but there is definitely growth coming from the base.


One really odd large branch in rude health...


...and a great many smaller shoots firing up from the lower trunk. She's survived over a decade to get to this point and she ain't giving up yet.

Now my only dilemma is what to do. The obvious is to prune out the top growth and shorten that long branch so it's all in proportion again: I suspect she'll end up rather multistemmed, but that may be an advantage.

But more to the point, bearing in mind my imminent departure, do you think she'll survive being moved? I had thought I would have to cut her down, so the new owners wouldn't get the joy of all those flowers anyway: now that she's recovered, I'm feeling the urge to continue our long and rather lovely relationship.

On the other hand, of course, I'm going to have chalky soil where I'm going. Though M. stellata is one of the magnolias which is said not to mind a little alkaline, this is a lot alkaline. So I may be putting her through the mill again and it may be better to do the altruistic thing and prune her to shape and leave her for our successors to enjoy.

If I could only be less maudlin about my plants I wouldn't have this problem. But then on the other hand I probably wouldn't be gardening either. There's no hope, really, is there?

Collateral damage

Oh dear.

A quick tour of my so-called jungle garden (i.e. the place I so optimistically planted up with climate change anticipation plants last summer) reveals I didn't exactly get out of the recent cold snap scot free.

This is (or was) a purple cordyline. I was rather fond of it as it made a snazzy contrast with the libertias and hostas, to say nothing of a canna behind it, and gave me the pleasant illusion that I was quite good at putting plants together. I thought they were meant to be bone hardy, too.

The remains of a Melianthus major that was just getting into its stride last autumn...

...and my poor Astelia chathamica 'Silver Spear', lately of Chelsea 2008, which also looks to be less hardy than you would think.

Some of these might - just - come back, though I'm not sure they'll ever be quite the same again. Now, here's a quandary. do I press on and insist on a jungly area at the bottom of my garden anyway? (I'll have my banana-mad eight-year-old daughter to answer to if I don't). Do I resort to drought-tolerant Mediterranean plants only to have them washed away and drowned in a sea of mud every winter? Or do I plant a sea of English flowers and water them every five minutes all summer, also risking the customary deluge turning to a desert-like scorcher and the whole lot frazzling to a crisp as soon as I turn my back?

You know, this gardening lark isn't as straightforward as it looks.

Frosty morning

I know frost is meant to be the gardener's enemy. I, like no doubt many others in the vicinity, spent much of yesterday running around frantically squirrelling things away in my greenhouse as the weather forecast got gloomier and gloomier. This morning, I still found I had several casualties when I woke up to find it went down to minus 2 or so. But oh... it was so beautiful.


This was one of my casualties - the Nicandra physaloides, now reduced to a sodden mess in the corner. But didn't it look lovely as it died.

I thought this Goliath poppy was being a bit optimistic, producing flower heads this late in the season!

Verbena bonariensis is, I often think, at its best after a good frost.

The frost melted pretty quickly but even that sent me into rhapsodies - this is Melianthus major which holds onto the droplets like jewels. The little spider was up early, too.

Another one that's looking good as the frost melts off it - this is Eucalyptus gunnii, kept coppiced for that glaucous, rounded young foliage.

And even the nettles were pretty. It doesn't get much better than that.

First frost of the season!

I can't believe it... we had our first frost of the year at the weekend.

This is the first time I can remember having a frost before November down here. We're an energetic spit from the M25 after all and what with global warming I was looking forward to comfortably making it through to Christmas before turning on the greenhouse heater before many years had gone by.

But no - we woke to a lawn frosted with ice. I raced off down the garden, heart in my mouth to have a look at the Ensete ventricosum that my father-in-law lovingly raised from seed and then gave to me (or rather my eight-year-old daughter); it's been growing like topsy all year and is now a good 10ft high and still heading skywards. It's been my pride and joy, and I was just getting ready to dig it up for winter and snuggle it down in the greenhouse, but here I was, caught short.

I was so relieved to find that that Colutea arborescens which arches over it had kindly protected it from the frost and it was still intact and as robust as ever. Lucky escape. Not so fortunate were the crops up at the allotment - the Sarpo Mira potatoes had all the tops frosted (not such a big deal as I was already harvesting them) and more upsettingly the sweetcorn I rescued from rat attack with the help of my feline friends had been totally clobbered, as had the butternut squash underneath. I had a nice big squash ripening up too. That's got an ominous grey patch on it but I'm hoping I can salvage at least some for my favourite roast veg dish.

Blimey, I can't keep up with this climate thing. I can cope with daffs in November; I can even see the bright side over these ridiculous amounts of rain over summer (I haven't had to water the allotment for a whole two years now). But the unpredictability is a little unnerving at times like these. I just wish it would make its mind up and stay like that for a bit.

Magnolias at Kew

Yes, I know it's long past magnolia season but I thought I'd just recall for everyone just how lovely these trees are. My excuse is that I've been having a bit of a magnolia fest this year, as not only did I get to write a whole article about them which included talking to some of the country's best growers and enthusiasts but also got to see the National Collection down in Caerhays which got me totally smitten - especially this fine specimen.

Well, just a few days after I got back from Cornwall I was over at Kew on another journalistic jaunt (I do love my job) and while wandering back from doing my interview, went to have a look at the magnolias. They'd been rather clobbered by frost, unfortunately - occupational hazard if you're a magnolia - but there was still enough there to make me swoon.



This one was amazing (and this pic is now my desktop - VP take note, I've shown you mine now too!). This is M. 'Phelan Bright', and these flowers are 10" across. Pretty amazing anyway, but even more so when you consider the tree is only 3 years old (some magnolias can take up to 20 years to flower).


Sadly this lovely thing was just about the only flower on the whole tree not reduced to brown and tattered ribbons by frost. Made it all the more special that this one survived. This is M. heptapita 'Yulan' - I'd never heard of the species, but the flower colour was the purest white of the lot.


Magnolias aren't often praised for anything except their flowers, but the buds are just gorgeous (fuzzy brown nutkins you can't help but stroke) and the leaves are often spectacular too. None more so than the leaves of M. grandiflora - it's evergreen and as you can see has lush, almost tropical foliage.


I love magnolias for their branch structure and their habit of flowering before the leaves come out - yes, it exposes them to frost, but it also shows you how spectacular pure white flowers against the stark outline of a tree trunk can be. This one is M. x veitchii 'Alba'.

Note to self: plant another magnolia. I only have M. stellata but every time it comes out in my front garden it looks more spectacular and I promise myself I'll get another one soon.