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( pic by : Adam Kuban )
In the crack - snow-white daylight of January and February , we ’re feature Page from the many catalogue that are arriving in our office daily . There ’s really nothing better than catalog reading — it ’s like windowpane shopping , but you’re able to do it in your layer , while eating cookies . ( Well , mayhap do n’t eat up cookies in bed . But you get laid what I mean . )
For our first Plant Lust postal service , we have to babble out about the pages of beautiful magnolias in theRare Find Nursery catalogue . I mature up in San Francisco , where my parents had a large magnolia tree in their backyard , but I was never particularly impressed . Our sort of magnolia , which I have since discover is separate asMagnoliasubgenusMagnolia , was an evergreen , and you ’ll often see these types of magnolia ( full name : Magnolia grandiflora ) in the South . These magnolia put out showy green leaves , which will last throughout the wintertime , and later on , an occasional gargantuan white flower or two . ( At least in San Francisco — I have heard that they bloom more profusely in the South . ) They ’re impressive trees , but , in my opinion , a moment baronial and serious . If I may say so , with their leaf - first attitude , they ’re a picayune snatch like mullets : business up front , party in the back .
catalogue pic by Anna Stockwell .
When I moved to New York for college , I saw , for the first meter , the amazing flower - first - leaves - after magnolias ( or , continuing with my mullet analogy , political party in the front , business in the back ) , known asMagnoliassubgenusYulania . These magnolia trees conk out from empty branch to being smother in pink petals , in what seemed like an overnight transformation . It was the most fun , frilly , downright PRETTY tree diagram I had ever date and I loved it . Of naturally , like any company animal , flower - first magnolias take a warm trip-up from glorious blooming heyday to fallen flower . ( more often than not about a week or so , I find . ) But such is the transience of beauty .
Since my college old age , I have always loved the flirty , all - flower - all - the - sentence type of magnolia , and I always explore them out in April , when they mostly commence to flower here in New York , for their prompt burst of awing color .
In any case , Rare Find Nursery , based in Jackson , New Jersey , has an astonishing selection of magnolia available for sale , plausibly the great selection in the U.S. They work with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden , which has been doing some really innovational piece of work with magnolia cultivars over the preceding few tenner . They even have an almost - black magnolia flower !
sport fact ABOUT MAGNOLIAS
- Having roamed * the Earth before bee evolved , magnolia trees are pollinated by beetles .
- Ents vagabond inLord of the Rings . Why ca n’t magnolias ?
-Despite the rubric of the democratic movieSteel Magnolias , magnolia Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree are n’t really fragile . ( You know , how the ladiesseemedlike delicate magnolias , but they were in reality made of brand . ) Since they evolved to allow beetles to crawl all over them , magnolias are really pretty knotty and pest - resistant .
-Magnolias are the internal efflorescence of North Korea , the state flower of Mississippi and Louisiana , and the Department of State tree diagram of Mississippi .
Top photo : Magnolia ' Elizabeth',at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and also pictured in the catalogue spread head . The catalogue say : " One of the first and certainly the best - known of the white-livered hybrids from a 1956 crossbreed made at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden . legion butter - chickenhearted , tulip shaped flowers open before the leaves on a fast - growing , wide erect tree diagram . heat content : 20 - 30 ' W : 15 - 20 ' zone 5 - 9 . "
