After nine days of cloud and rain - not unnoticed by some recent hardy guests from America - perhaps it really is the start of our spring? A tree in my garden certainly believes it.

Poets in China called the magnolia tree "How do you do to the Spring", and I think that's exactly what this tree in the garden of Wolvesey View B&B is now saying.

In later spring it is really breath-taking with its 'great flowers of pink-tinted ivory'.

I am very proud of it for I bought it twenty five years ago from the famous Hillier's of Winchester as a sapling. When I planted it it was perhaps just three metres high and now it is some twelve metres high.

Magnolias have a very special story. They are incredibly ancient, perhaps 20 million years old as a species, older than bees, so they were fertilised by beetles, and their flowers had to be strong enough to withstand the damage beetles could cause. While the family of magnolias is widespread in the Americas and Asia the first tree in England arrived in the year William and Mary came to replace James II, 1688. The tree was sent from Virginia by the missionary and plant hunter John Bannister to the Bishop of London Henry Compton for the gardens of his Fulham palace. The gardens at Fulham were  as remarkable a collection of plants in the late 17th century as Kew Gardens. Incidentally Henry Compton was one of those who invited William of Orange and later crowned the new king and queen. The name Magnolia came later in the 18th century when a flowering tree in Martinique was named after a French botanist Pierre Magnol from Montpellier. 

The magnolia tree has another very useful feature mentioned by Archie Miles in his wonderful book 'Silva, The Tree in Britain'. That is its very strong roots, clearly seen at Kew in the 1980s and 90s when other trees were severely affected.

A walk round Winchester is very pleasant for tree enthusiasts but a few miles away is the enormous collection of the Hillier Arboretum, and a bit further on the New Forest.

Web links

 Magnolia - Wikipedia

Archie Miles

The Man Who Planted Trees

The Hillier Arboretum - Hampshire County Council

Henry Compton

Pierre Magnol

Kew Gardens

The New Forest