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Garden journal entry

 

April 23, 2011. We purchased our Magnolia 'Elizabeth' to celebrate the birth of our daughter Lily, now nearly eight years old. The tree was grafted, but the nurseryman couldn't quite remember what rootstock he had used – he thought it might have been M. kobus. When I noticed a sucker at the base a year or two later, I decided to grow it on to see what it would turn out to be. So for the past six or so years, we've had a magnolia tree growing in our vegetable garden, getting quite tall (it's at least 10 feet high now), but not producing any flowers. Until this year, it finally showed its true color: white, as it turns out. Which means that M. kobus may indeed be the correct species. In any case, it's not nearly as nice as the standard M. stellata in our front yard, which has similar flowers produced with better form and in greater abundance. I guess there's a reason this specimen is used as a rootstock rather than the main show. So the magnolia will be coming down this year. The asparagus will be thankful: their tall neighbor was starting to cast a good bit of shade in their direction.
It's always fun to experiment in the garden – even when in the end, you wind up trashing the results.


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