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. 

Magnolia season has begun

Magnolia flowering season has begun, and just in time.  Our earliest magnolia is M. stellata, star magnolia, a very handsome and lacey flower tinged in pink.  About 50% of the time a frosty night ruins the flowers, so TPP planted his where it is shaded in the morning which pushes back its flowering by about 5 to 7 days, a critical amount to avoid frozen flowers.  So far (12 years now) it's been working.  However yesterday the star magnolia on campus was subject to a minor ravaging because its flowers were needed for lab.  As TPP had to explain to a couple of nosy butt-inskies, this is what the campus is for; it represents the largest and most frequently visited classroom on campus, and TPP is the instructor. Figuring out this flower poses another problem because students can only count to 20 (fingers & toes), so the numerous parts of many magnoliad flowers leaves them with basic aboriginal quantification, many parts, and they fail to discover that on average the many parts are multiples of 3.  Don't take TPP's word for it, count the parts on a couple of dozen flowers and see for yourself.  Sigh.  They take my word for it.  The stamens also confuse because they don't look like stamens are supposed to look.Where's the filaments? Where are the sepals? Are those all pistils?  And so begins the not all flowers look like textbook illustrations, in fact, most don't lesson. Just wait until Calycanthus flowers; now that's some fun.  

Queen of Spring - Ann

As some of you probably know by now, the Phactor has a thing for magnolias.  Why he just bought a new "Butterflies" magnolia the other day and eagerly awaits it arrival, although no flowers will be forthcoming until next spring.  The acceleration of spring afforded by two weeks of summer temperatures in March have also compressed flowering, and three species of Magnolia that usually flower in a sequence are in flower all at the same time: star, saucer, and tulip.  They look quite lovely together, as the occupy the same portion of the garden and are spaced such that they do not overlap when viewed from either the street or across the gardens.  But the undoubted queen is Magnolia liliiflora, sometimes called the "tulip" magnolia because it has rather dark pink tepals that it holds in an erect position.  Both the star and saucer magnolia are more popular, and more widely planted, leaving the less popular Ann a much under appreciated plant.  Do consider getting one.  Here's the star and saucer (not quite fully open as the tepals spread widely) magnolia flowers for comparison.  Briefly the Phactor thought about letting you vote on this, but actually on this topic, your opinion matters not at all.  

Do not covet thy neighbor's Magnolia

Who would ever follow such a ridiculous commandment? Besides when you got a thing for magnolias, you covet them all. You resent hardiness zone restrictions, and cost is no object, but other than that the Phactor is as objective about magnolias as the next guy. My neighbor doesn't have any magnolias, but a fine specimen of Magnolia kobus grows on our campus and its flowering display this year was magnificent. Some of the taxonomic experts say star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) should be Magnolia kobus var. stellata, and they are quite similar. The Kobushi magnolia is generally a bigger tree/shrub with bigger flowers bearing fewer bigger petals than star magnolia. It is quite hardy to the depths of zone 5, and one optimistic source said it has zone 4 hardiness. Maybe. This specimen was suffering a bit from a windy day so the flowers were a bit whipped, but still this flower was all of seven inches (17.5 cm) across with petals over 4 cm wide. When it first emerged, like most white flowered magnolias there were lots of pink highlights. Here in the Midwest it's better to plant these early magnolias where they won't flower quite so early thus risking a heavy frost ruining the floral display.