Pamela,
If I recall well, you are in the costa Blanca
in Spain. In my opinion, your climate doesn't meet many of the
requirements for successfully growing Magnolia stellata, or pretty
much, any magnolia (maybe grandiflora with proper summer watering and soil
amendment). Leaf scorch during summer will probably happen year after
year. Also, I take it your soil is rather alcaline as well. The
combination of heat, low humidity and lime is probably in your magnolia's
nightmares. An almond tree can have equivalent value to the magnolia
(fragrant flowers on bare stems in late winter) and be much happier in your
garden.
Fran
Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain
Hi Pam
I guess all gardeners have the tendency to long
to grow some things which really do not suit their climate and you may yet
have to admit defeat in this.
Here are however.a few suggestions which might
help you to get reasonable growth from your Magnolia.
I do not think applying fertilizers to such a
stressed plant would help at all. It would be like giving a heavy
feed to someone who was suffering a serious illness. The main
thing you can help your shrub with is keeping the soil not only
moist but as cool as possible through summer.
I hope where you have sited it now not only
puts it into a suitable pH, but gives it some shade through the hotter part
of the day. If one has any choice in this matter the time that counts most
is from midday until late afternoon, morning sun is usually more
bearable.
Mulch, on the other hand is an absolute
essential for survival. Magnolias normally grow in nature in forest
situations in the shade of larger treeswhere there is a natural
mulch from leaf-fall coupled with lots of twiggy material and often larger
fallen branches. Mulch has fthe power to help the soil stay both damp
and cool and normally the main feeding roots of forest trees and shrubs with
this protection are only a little below the surface. In this
situation their main source of food is the decaying leaves and wood
and this provides a very good balanced nourishment for
them, better than any artificial source. It has been shown that the
main food supply of any natural forest is actually ramiel wood. This is any
young wood less than about 7cm (3") diameter which decays on the soil
surface. Such young wood has a lot of good nourishment in it and as it
breaks down become available to the plants by the action of the
soil-dwelling microorganisms. Such food is very gentle and will be
completely safe for your "invalid". This mulch to be really useful should be
spread in a ring from near the centre of th Magnolia at least to the spread
of the branches.The branch spread we see above ground is echoed (often
slightly exceeded) by the spread of the roots below in what is
designate the root zone. This will spread yearly as the plant grows, so the
width of the ring of mulched ground should regularly increase and should for
preference be kept _at least_ 10 cm deep in mulch.
As to what mulch you should use. The ideal
would be what we try to use here for our woody plants here, ground up tree
prunings . but if you have no means of chipping wood and can't buy any ready
chipped material in Spain. you can use a mix of any fallen leaves you can
get (including some pine needles) with small twigs. To get your
mulch started on rotting it would help to mix in some grass
clippings or even a few green weeds (not yet seeding). This provides extra
nitrogen, very useful to get things going. A word of warning though, while
twiggy material may be safely piled near to the stems of your magnolia, any
mushy green material should be put at least a hndspan away so that it cannot
start a bark rot at the base of those stems.
Whether this will be enough to give you a
reasonably happy plant I don't know. I would suggest you carry on for a year
or two keeping up the milch and giving what shade you can manage and just
see what happens.( Alternatively you could perhaps join us here in
Kiwi land where all the early Magnolias at present are resplendent in their
spring blossoms !!)
Moira
