Magnolia watch: Spring has officially arrived
Magnolias burst into bloom, the best varieties for every garden, and the fascinating mystery of the first pink daffodil
I met the deadline! The copy for my next book has been delivered to the publisher - the captions have been written and I’ve found hundreds of spelling mistakes. There’ll be a version sent back for me to check all over again, but for now, THE RELIEF. We’re currently having an interesting back-and-forth about which of two photos to use for the front cover - this is fascinating, as the prettiest photo isn’t always the most commercial, apparently. I’d personally always go for pretty, but then I’m not a publisher… watch this space.
I can’t wait to tell Gardening Mind members more - you totally inspired this book.
Magnolia Watch
One morning last week, I noticed that a magnolia in my village was full of fat buds. “Not long now,” I thought.
Sure enough, later that day, after the first few hours of warming, continuous sunshine that we’ve seen in ages, many of the buds were already opening. I nipped over to nearby Sissinghurst to check what was happening there, and sure enough:
Those buds had been waiting patiently: all they’d needed was a tickle of sunlight and BOOM - it was flower-explosion time. Today I’m taking a look at some that we could plant in our own gardens - there’s still time to plant them now.
A lost daffodil
Also, there’s a daffodil mystery - do you have one of these rare daffodils in your own back garden? You may very well have, especially if you’ve followed my lists in the past. All to be revealed…
If you missed the midweek rose advice, you can find it here:
Also coming up: hedgehogs and tiny greenhouses (not tiny greenhouses for hedgehogs though that would be sweet)
SO HERE IT IS
This is properly exciting, and I think we deserve it: there’s little quite so uplifting as a magnolia tree in full bloom. A true springtime tonic.
Every year in Cornwall in the southwest of the UK, a network of gardens keep careful watch of six champion Magnolia campbellii – one in each garden.
When all those six trees have at least 50 open blooms on each tree, they declare that spring has arrived in England.
And… the news is:
