Magnolia Jade Lamp

Regular readers may recall my 'last day out' before the lockdown was to the new RHS Bridgewater gardens near Manchester.  I went with my daughter and we knew that our days of garden visits were going to be numbered for a while, though I think very few of us had any idea of how long we were going to be impacted upon.  Maybe this is why when I did my write up of the visit I did not mention the subsequent Magnolia tree purchases.

Magnolia Jade Lamp

We had stopped off at a garden centre for some lunch on the way home and saw a rather lovely Magnolia Genie which we both thought very wonderful.  They were a little pricey in the garden centre, so I hunted on line for one when I got home and bought two, one for me and one for my daughter.  I might (did) at the same time pop a Magnolia Jade Lamp into the shopping basket and all three trees arrived shortly after.  

Of course I had to wait a few months before my daughter could actually have her tree as we were by that point in lockdown.  I planted both my trees into the garden and waited for them to flower.

Magnolia Genie obliged by flowering the following year (last year) despite the frosts doing their best to prevent this.  Jade Lamp needed another year to think about flowering.

The tree grew well and over the winter it became apparent that flower buds were forming.
I got very excited watching them develop and start to open.
We are still having frosts so I worried that I might lose the flowers before they had chance to really open.  Can you see the lovely jadey/green flush on the petals?  I do like this a lot.
Finally we got to the ta-da! moment.  My little magnolia flowered wonderfully.
Lots of flowers for a tree that is around 4 feet tall.  I cannot wait to see how it develops further.
and of course just at the moment when I am feeling really pleased with this tree, Jack Frost comes along in his usual tricksy way and turns all the blooms into dirty dishrags.  T'is of no real matter though, the tree is flowering wonderfully, frost or no frost.
It is a happy memory of a happy day just before the loss of so many happy days.  It is a growing memory of that time before we descended further into the sadness that the pandemic brought.  It seems very apt that it is flowering in the week of the second anniversary of the first lockdown.

Take care and be kind.
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