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by Trevor Cole
photos by Tracy Cox |
Magical
Magnolias (part
3) |
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| 'Jane' |
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| 'Yellow
Bird' |
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Once
established, magnolias may need occasional pruning to keep them
in bounds. This should be done in early summer after flowering.
Remove damaged and crossed branches, shoots growing toward the
centre of the plant and, once the magnolia grows larger, any
lower branches that have become an obstruction.
In the wild, magnolias grow in
woodlands where they benefit from decomposing leaves. To compensate
for this in the garden, feed them with a granular, slow-release
fertilizer, such as a 10-10-10 formulation, in early spring.
Apply around the plant’s drip line, using 250 to 500 grams
of fertilizer per 2.5 centimetres of trunk diameter, measured
at chest height. For a multi-stemmed tree, add up the diameters
of the various stems to determine the amount of fertilizer you
need. However, don’t fertilize at all for the first couple
of years; you want the plant to develop a spreading root system.
While magnolias grown in the Deep
South are subject to several fungal problems, the ones grown
in Canada are relatively disease-free. Common pests such as
slugs and aphids may cause some damage, but it’s seldom
serious, except on young plants.
Most popular
The star magnolia (M. stellata, Zone 5) is likely the most widely
grown. This slow-growing shrub may eventually reach five metres
tall and about three metres wide, with dense branches and 10-centimetre-wide,
white flowers. ‘Waterlily’ has pink buds with 14
petals each that open white, while ‘King Rose’ and
‘Pink Star’ both produce blooms with 22 pink-tinged
petals. The most popular variety is ‘Royal Star’,
with pink buds and fragrant, white flowers that have up to 30
petals. It’s also the hardiest and is worth trying in
sheltered Zone 4 gardens.
The flowers of the saucer magnolia
(M. x soulangeana, Zone 5) average nine petals and are much
wider and larger—up to 25 centimetres across—than
those of the star magnolia; inner petals overlap and form an
almost closed chalice, while outer petals spread slightly to
make a saucer. They’re generally pale purple outside and
white inside, but this varies. Like its blooms, the shrub is
large—it can reach a height of 10 metres in good conditions.
Growth is upright when the shrub is young but spreads as it
matures. The saucer magnolia is a hybrid of M. liliiflora and
M. denudata, and originated in the garden of Étienne
Soulange-Bodin in 1820 in Fromont, France. He had been a cavalry
officer in Napoleon’s army and, following the defeat at
Waterloo and sickened by the war, he turned to his garden for
solace. As he wrote in an 1819 edition of the Gardener’s
Magazine: “It had doubtless been better for both parties
to have stayed at home and planted their cabbages.” Other
hybridizers have repeated this cross since then and there are
now many varieties with flowers of varying colour and size.
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1 | PART 2 | PART
3 | PART 4 |
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