Sacha wrote:
On 27/3/08 10:08, in article
, "Jeff Layman"
wrote:
Sacha wrote:
At a guess, rain, wind and cold, if you've been getting all those.
Magnolias don't like cold wind on the developing buds. Two years
ago we lost all the buds on our M. campbellii to frost.
What a shame! It's not exactly the magnolia most keen to get into
flowering mode, either. How many years have you had it?
This M. Campbellii was quite keen to get going, in fact. Ray planted
it about 16 years ago (he thinks) and this is its third or fourth
year of flowering, including the one when it lost all the buds.
That seems early, although it would depend on how old it was when he planted
it. ISTR reading somewhere that it can take 25 - 30 years from seed to
flower.
Frost damage can hit any magnolia. I'm feeling pretty smug at the moment,
as my stellatas are always very slow, and everyone else's always flower
before mine. Well, it happened again this year, but all those other
stellatas are now just a brown mess, and the buds on mine have only just
started to open. Oh, well, one year in every 6 or so is probably worth
waiting for...
--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)