How to choose the best magnolias for your garden
Magnolias for gardens large and small
It’s magnolia time
What I love about The Gardening Mind is that it acts like a journal - I can see what was happening in the garden exactly this time last year, and compare notes. Looking at last year’s entries show that 2025’s February has been cold and grey, and the magnolias are only just starting. But starting they are, so let’s celebrate that magnificence:
Here’s a revisit to this time last year, then. Did you buy a magnolia? I bought three - and there’s more to be revealed in Saturday’s Gardening Mind.
.
March 2024: The magnolias
Wherever I look at the moment, the magnolias are splendid. Have you noticed them emerging? They’re magnificent. Resplendent. Majestic. Whether goblet-shaped or splatted stars, their solid waxy flowers have an eerily-seductive glow about them; far bulkier than their positively waif-like cherry blossom peers, they stop us in our tracks as they defy gravity, weather and general expectation.
Is this year a particularly good year for the magnolias? It certainly seems like that to me - the camellias too have been showier, happier, more in tune with their surroundings than for a long time. I’m convinced that this general feeling that both have somehow just been excellent is due to their colours: the welcome brights pinging to our brains and making us feel better.
Last week, I stood in a field newly-planted with hundreds of magnolias:
I wish I could share it with you, and perhaps one day, I’ll be able to - there were magnolias of every variety, the passion of a collector, his lifetime’s dream now a reality. The trees are babies still, but each one carried at least one precocious bloom, fat and heavy on young stems. And in each of these flowers, their semi-precious shades seem to somehow light them up. Pastels and jewels, it was as if someone had strung up a line of carnival lanterns which bobbled through the brown-grey branches.
They are bringers of joy, and they are most definitely saving us from grey:
I need at least one magnolia in my garden. Sometimes, writing these posts sends me off on an online shopping expedition, and today is no exception. My basket currently has three of the following in it, and I’m about to press BUY NOW:
Some of these will grow to be HUGE specimens, and if you’ve the space, you might just find one here amongst 18 from my plant list for the ‘magnoliaretum’.
I have good news for you: there are a lot of compact varieties, which means that there really is a magnolia for any-sized garden
I’ve included a lot of smaller varieties too, large shrubs rather than small (or indeed large) trees. Now I challenge you to choose just one out of all of these.