Re: Bloom seasons in northern and southern hemispheres

Tim Dutton wrote:
Hi Moira

Our Magnolia 'Apollo' seems to always flower twice every year, once in
spring on bare branches like a magnolia should and then again during the
summer. The summer flowering is more prolonged, at least a couple of months,
but with all the leaves on the tree you don't really notice it. I'm not sure
whether or not this is peculiar to this variety, as we don't grow any other
magnolias to compare.

Hi Tim
Nice to know you are still around. Hope things are going well with you, your family and your garden.

I looked up your Apollo in Flora and it is one of a huge and growing group of deciduous hybrids, whose parentage is now so obscure they don't even try to describe it any longer. The first hybrids of this group, which have been with us a long long time, are all ascribed to the M. X Soulangiana cross between the purplish lily-flowered Magnolia (M.nigra) and the white Yulan Magnolia (M. denudata). The lily flowered sort, a large bush which flowers in full leaf, is to my eye not particularly attractive, but the other parent, a considerable tree(which flowers before leafing) is simply glorious with huge goblet-shaped pure white flowers. I have only once seen one. It was in a friend's garden, but had to be removed, alas, to make room for a garage.

I don't doubt this cross is still the basis for the newer hybrids and with the basic parents one of which flowers bare and the other in leaf anything could happen I suppose, especially with unusual weather patterns.

Our odd overcast summers and/or extra rain of the last several years seems to have stimulated other out-of-season flowering as well. I have a small pink Rhododendron (name lost) in the border outside my bedroon window which I remember flowered last autumn and then again in spring at its more usual time. This very morning I spied out the window it is repeating the exercise, with one truss fully out and several buds looking ready to open.


One thing that is different this year, we are still hearing and seeing
cicadas in the third week in March, which I can't recall from previous
years. I always think of them being out only during February..

It is no wonder they did not get going this February - I wonder they did not all drown! They do seem to have had a much curtailed season anyway. Perhaps it is now too cool for them to "sing" successfully!

Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ.     Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
NEW PICTURES ADDED 4/Feb/2004

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