I don’t know about you, but spring really couldn’t come early enough for me this year. So I am watching the first signs of blooming bulbs and blossom with an enormous sense of excitement and anticipation. While, for some reason, it always seems to be flowering cherries that get all the attention, for me it’s magnolias that always steal the show, both in spring and beyond. So here are some of the very best places around the country to see these amazing trees in all their glory, as the weather finally starts to warm.
I think I’ll have to start with Kew Gardens, mainly as it’s my local haunt, which I am most familiar with. There’s a hidden spot in the arboretum, off the main trails between the glasshouses, which just erupts into pastel pink shades each spring – like a scene from a manga film. With most of these mature trees being the wild species forms instead of modern hybrids bred to fit our increasingly small gardens, there is something just jaw dropping about not just the concentration of trees, but their soaring height. Incredible.
To many people, the finest collection in the country is at Caerhays Castle in Cornwall, which has some of the oldest specimens of many of the wild species outside their original east Asian habitat. With candyfloss clouds floating around faux-turrets of a manor house from the 1900s, it really feels as if you have fallen into a fairytale. Just down the road from the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan, it is a must-see destination on any spring jaunt down to Cornwall. It is one of four gardens around the country to share the national collection of magnolias, along with Bodnant in north Wales, Wentworth Castle in Yorkshire and Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, so you don’t have to be a south-westerner to admire the spectacle.
One garden I haven’t yet managed to get to, but am constantly told by my colleagues is an absolute must-see, is Rowallane in County Down, Northern Ireland. Famous for its collection of magnolias under-planted with azaleas and daphnes, it creates a spring triple-whammy in an old walled garden.
But perhaps what I love about magnolias is the fact that their charm lasts far beyond a few weeks of spring. Many species tend to create beautifully slated, character-filled specimens, whose bonsai-like architecture is stunning even as leafless specimens in the dead of winter.
With fresh, apple-green leaves and often a secondary sprinkling of flowers in late summer, they beat flowering cherries hands down. And if you fancy checking out your favourite form for a new addition for your garden, all these famous gardens make amazing places to windowshop.
Follow James on Twitter @Botanygeek
