Conifers wrote:Dave Brown wrote:Alexander wrote:Thats why I always look first for the hardiest varieties of a particulair plant. For example Magnolia grandiflora 'Brackens Brown Beauty' instead of just a regulair less hardy M. grandiflora variaty.
Alexander
I thought they were hardy, here at least. The reason they are grown against a wall is so the huge flowers face outward rather than upward. I had a tall free standing one and you could just about see the flowers pointing up to the heavens
The main reason for growing them against a wall is to increase the summer heat effect, which increases the flowering.
Magnolia grandiflora is one of those continental climate plants that's not worried about UK winter cold, but does need a baking hot summer to thrive and flower well.
Well the Brackens Brown Beauty do not need a wall to flower well here. Nor those Edith Bogue. Both are very winterhardy but do also flower well in my usely chilly Dutch summer. Well 22 C is the average maximum for the warmest month here wich is July. Well similair to the southern part of the UK I guess.
And M. grandiflora Exmouth is the one you see often trained along walls of old country houses in England.
It does however also flower in my area without training. But is is supposed to be more sensitive for strong winds.
Maybe also that training dates back to the time of introduction a couple of hundreds of years ago. Winters where colder then. And poeple might have regarded it as frost tender.
Well M. grandiflora Exmouth has survived minus 20 C and more in Steenwijkerwold at the nursery of ''De Groene Prins''.
Well here a list of his coldhardy M. grandiflora. Again at his nursery M. g. Brackens Brown Beauty is the winner. Best flowering one, best leaves and best coldhardiness in the chilly Dutch climate.
www.degroeneprins.nl
Alexander