Friday Fabulous Flower - Pretty in pink - Loebner's Magnolia

Three years ago TPP got this Loebner's magnolia (Magnolia x loebneri) 'Leonard Messel' from a big-box end of season sale for $20. It was a great bargain, and in very good shape considering its pot confinement and summer vacation in the garden shop yard. The tree is now a bit over 7 feet tall and growing very well.  It's not quite as early to flower as one of its parents, the star magnolia, which allowed it to avoid this year's mid-March freeze with very little damage to its flowers.  Although some star magnolias are pink, TPP wonders if they have some hybrid ancestry? This one's flowers are definitely pink with fewer, broader, shorter tepals than star magnolias; quite handsome in our sea of blue. In terms of growth and foliage, it looks quite like its star magnolia parent.

What gardeners like - bargains

Those of us infected by the gardening virus can develop quite a plant habit. TPP has never dared keep track of what he spends annually on plants purchases and other gardening expenses.  However, when you are sitting on your patio sipping a margarita while surveying your gardening domain, the only word that comes to mind is priceless. Nonetheless TPP keeps his eye open for bargains, as an excuse if nothing else.  As Mrs. Phactor points out that at our age buying a 1-gallon-sized tree because it's cheap isn't really any bargain.  Still the lure of a good bargain is hard to pass up. In the fall of 2014 TPP was looking at the sale items leftovers in the garden shop of a big box store and there were some sort of bushy magnolias in 5 gallon pots and they looked quite nice considering. The tag indicated that they were Magnolia x. loebneri 'Leonard Messel', a hybrid between Magnolia kobus and a pink variety of M. stellata, but the two are rather similar species anyways, so no surprise the plants quite look like a Star magnolia, but pink flowered.  But the kicker, the thing that brought joy to TPP's heart was that a magnolia he lacked cost $20.  And it's proving to be a lovely plant so far, an absolute bargain by anyone's standard.