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Magnolias: A Gardener's GuideEditions
Review
Magnolias and their cousin the Tulip Tree, rank as some of the most primitive of flowering plants, and the evidence of fossils remains date back 50 million years or so. The elementary nature of the flower lends itself to hybridisation procedures, with technological advances making this an exciting garden plant nowadays and new crosses are being established all the time. We have a former Napoleonic cavalry officer, Chevalier Etienne Soulange-Bodin, to thank for the first splendid hybrid M x soulangeana which still ranks as one of the glories of the horticultural world. The siting of a Magnolia which can eventually become a major tree, is something of an event in any garden, and Jim Gardiner, who knows a thing or two about them as curator of the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley, is wonderfully enthusiastic about this, his preferred genus, and full treatment is given to all significant species and hybrids as well as their care and cultivation, and even where to see and buy them. I have deliberately cleared an area on a bank in my own garden and waited patiently to eradicate the dreaded honey fungus. This timely tome has enabled me to select and order a yellow-flowered M. acuminata ‘Moegi Dori’. I’ll keep you posted. - review by Stewart Grimshaw |
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John Sandoe [Books] Ltd |
Monographs on flowering shrubs are rare, so it’s good to welcome back this volume, first published in 1989, but well nigh unrecognisable thanks to the generous addition of a great number of colour photographs by the author which prove to be invaluable in selecting specimens from this glamorous genus.
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