Not all Magnolia doltsopas are equal

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‘Tis the season for Magnolia doltsopa to bloom. It being midwinter, this immediately means it is a plant for milder climates and it has been a popular plant purchase in our area for many years. It used to be known as Michelia doltsopa but michelias have been swallowed up into the bigger family of magnolia now.

M. doltsopa, on the main street of Whaitara
The Whaitara doltsopa is growing behind a hedge so I had to peek in from the gateway to confirm from its bottom branches that it is in fact doltsopa, probably ‘Silver Cloud’.

As I scan the roadsides looking for deciduous magnolias opening their early season blooms, it surprises me how often the immediate take from the car window is to wonder what is the white deciduous magnolia flowering now. In fact, on second look, I realise it is the allegedly evergreen M. doltsopa. Often the lowest leaves on the tree are hanging on for grim death while all the exposed branches further up have abandoned the effort. The fresh foliage will start to show over the next few weeks and what is happening is that the tree is opening its flowers and dropping its leaves at the same time. Semi-deciduous rather than fully deciduous in that it drops an almost full set of leaves for a very short space of time.

I watch this doltsopa in Fitzroy each year. I am not sure it is a good advertisment for the species.

I have not put a lot of thought to M. doltsopa over the years, I admit. It is an evergreen species that comes from the eastern Himalayas (low altitude, I assume) and north eastern India. Being a species, in the wild it will spread by seed and those seedlings can be variable. There was an importation of doltsopa to Taranaki, the area where we live, at some stage in the late 1950s, maybe early 60s. We don’t know if they came in as seed or as small plants but Felix received one or two and the magnificent specimen in our park dates back to there. There are a few others of that importation around the province, mostly in private gardens of the day.

Not for the faint-hearted gardener. All those white blooms are from one plant on a single trunk of Magnolia doltsopa in our park.
Our form of doltsopa, loosely referred to as ‘Rusty’, has very good flowers in size, form, abundance and fragrance.

Of the ones I have seen, I think we got the best form. It is H U G E, so big that we never propagated it to sell because there aren’t many people who have the space of a small town section or more to give to one plant. Cambridge nurseryman, Peter Cave, sold a few under the name of ‘Rusty’ on account of its significant feature of furry indumentum that is not seen on most of the other forms of the same species. ‘Rusty’ never defoliates, has very large flowers and the desired fragrance.

The Rayner form of doltsopa

I photographed a different doltsopa seedling from the same batch imported 60 years ago in a friend’s garden, though this is not the original plant. It is referred to as the Rayner form, on account of the original plant being in the Rayner’s garden of the day  in central Taranaki. It is big, it keeps a full set of leaves but the flowers are not as large as our one and it lacks the appealing indumentum.

Our specimen of ‘Silver Cloud’. The flower is a good size but rather too floppy in form. Again this is a lower branch. The higher branches are partially defoliated.

I think most of the defoliated plants I see around are a named clone, ‘Silver Cloud’, selected by the once important nursery, Duncan and Davies, for slightly easier propagation properties and its large flower. I thought it was meant to be smaller growing too but then I photographed this one (below) in the same garden as the Rayner form and I am not sure I would call that smaller growing.

M. doltsopa ‘Silver Cloud’ in Glyn Church’s garden is not exactly smaller growing but at least it is not as badly defoliated as many of the others I have seen.

Back in earlier days, before ‘Silver Cloud’ was widely available, doltsopa seedlings were being sold. By seedlings, I mean plants raised from seed so showing variation whereas every ‘Silver Cloud’ in existence should share the same plant genes as the one original plant because they are propagated by layering or budding, not raised from seed. We know about the next generation of doltsopa seedlings being raised and sold because Hawera nurseryman and friend of Mark’s dad Felix, Roly Barry was collecting seed here from both ‘Rusty’ and ‘Silver Cloud’ which were then planted side by side to increase seed production by cross pollination.

Mark’s Fairy Magnolia White® is half doltsopa – probably the good half.

Mark’s hybrid which is named Fairy Magnolia White® is half doltsopa. When it came to describing it, Mark has always referred to it as ‘a garden-friendly doltsopa type’. I usually try and avoid shameless self-promotion even thought this is my own site, but after surveying all the doltsopas I pass around and about, I will say that I think Mark’s ‘Fairy White’ is a superior garden plant all round. It never defoliates, it prunes well, it flowers prolifically amongst healthy foliage and its flowers are not only well-formed and very pretty, they are also very fragrant. I would plant it ahead of ‘Silver Cloud’ any day.

Fairy Magnolia White® does not defoliate and can be clipped or pruned to keep it a more manageable size.

A day late but Mānawatia a Matariki

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A magical midwinter day with the sun highlighting the furry buds on Magnolia Iolanthe

Mark and I bumped into an old colleague at the garden centre this week. Admittedly, there was a cold southerly wind blowing but we were a little surprised when he commented that he thought we were having a particularly cold winter this year.

July 12, 2026 Our maunga, the mountain, Mount Taranaki

We did not contradict him but it is an indication of how fickle and unreliable humans are when it comes to assessing weather. We had a long and very mild autumn season stretching past the shortest day. The snows came late on the mountain again, as they did last year.

July 9, 2025

I had thought that I had never seen the snow come so late and then Facebook Memories brought up a post from July 9 last year and it had no snow. So it actually came earlier this year, albeit by a few days only.

The pink Magnolia campbellii this morning

Today is a perfect midwinter day – bright sun in a cloudless sky and no wind at all. I headed out with my camera this morning to record what is in bloom already here. While the pink Magnolia campbellii is flowering right on cue, I feel that it is early for the main showing of the snowdrops and the first narcissi.

Narcissus Twilight
Those little white dots, which you may not see on a phone screen, are part of our meadow plantings of snowdrops. Taken early this morning before they unfurled their petals to the sun.

Matariki this year was from July 8 to July 11 with the public holiday on the 10th so I am only one day late to wish you Mānawatia a Matariki, happy Māori New Year.  The dates are determined by the rising of the constellation known here as Matariki, or the Pleiades in astronomy circles. It is only in recent years that the majority of the non-Māori population  in our country has realised the significance of this time but we have embraced this truly indigenous celebration as part of our total culture. In that short time, it has become a special time with a unique character that transcends just the addition of a new statutory holiday.

For me, it is the start of a new year in the garden. And as this world lurches from crisis to crisis at an escalating rate, the start of a new year is a time for hope. We certainly need to reminded of hope and simple beauty in life these days.

Cymbidium orchids are already blooming

The National Library says of Matariki:

“The 3 major principles that guide Matariki are:

  • remembrance — honouring those who have died since the last rising of Matariki
  • celebrating the present — gathering together with family and friends
  • looking to the future — looking forward to the promise of a new year.”
Snowy white blooms on Camellia yuhsienensis

    The storm with no name

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    It seems to be common practice internationally to name severe storms. I am old enough to remember when they were always female names. I don’t know who confers the names these days but they are now gender neutral or gender alternating. In this country, I think it is largely restricted to cyclones that come down to us from the Pacific and stall over this country.

    Mark still remembers Cyclone Bola back in 1988 as does every other local resident of a certain age (I was in the maternity hospital at the time). We took a direct hit from Cyclone Dovi in 2022 but that was eclipsed by the magnitude of damage in other parts of the country by Cyclone Gabrielle the following year.

    We were a bit sorry to lose the Calodendrum capense but at least we have another one
    Happier days for the calodendrum

    Friday’s storm was not, I think, a cyclone or even a cyclone remnant (for context, hurricanes and typhoons are what these cyclones are called in other geographic areas). I think it was just predicted to be a severe winter storm with strong winds, possible heavy rainfall and snow to low levels in the mountains. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that warranted an identifying name.

    It turned out to be a bit more than that. As reports came in during the morning of road closures and warnings were issued against non-essential travel, we started to realise that it was not just a stormy day. When our power went out, I checked on line and saw that power was out for very large parts of the entire district which is a swathe of land stretching about 150km.

    Our electric car is one that has the capacity to act as a battery power source but it can only be connected to a multi board to power plug-in appliances. I felt smug as I had bought the special reverse charging cord that is designed for this very situation so we could boil the electric jug for afternoon tea. We were just completing preparations for a night with neither electricity nor water when the power came back on as darkness fell. We were one of the lucky ones. The scale of restoring power to thousands of homes means it is the luck of the draw as to who has to wait.

    The Picea omorika stood maybe 10 metres tall but one side had rotted at the base

    Compared to Dovi, this storm is on a much wider scale but for us personally, the damage is considerably less. We only have three trees down, one of which was dead anyway, and none of them are major. There are many smaller branches down and debris everywhere but nothing major, by our standards. Spare a thought for those hit considerably harder.

    What didn’t fall was the leaning pine tree I wrote about a few weeks ago.

    It is still standing as of today.

    This is climate change in action, folks, and your personal opinion of whether climate change is a hoax/conspiracy/over-hyped/not manmade or exaggerated is utterly irrelevant now. The climate don’t care what your personal opinion or political affiliation is. It is just going to keep climating and weathering along on its new trajectory at this stage.

    As an aside, spare a thought for weather forecasters and the Meteorological Service who get lambasted every time they over-predict or under-predict a weather forecast. As I understand it, weather is a great deal more predictable when there are large land masses like continents. We are a collection of islands that spans about 1600km in length with an average width of 150km, set in the middle of vast ocean expanses. The weather forecasters do their best but it is not an exact science in our situation. Being just one or two degrees out in calculation of weather trajectories can make a big difference by the time it reaches our shores.

    Even after a major storm, Magnolia campbellii looked like this the next morning when there was a brief spell of blue sky and a bone-chilling wind.

    Stay safe. I expect the maunga – our mountain – will be covered in fresh snow when the cloud clears and we can see it again.

    This spray of orchids was a casualty of the storm – broken off and lying on the ground. It is in the laundry because we heat the house to such a level that cut flowers wilt and die very rapidly in the main rooms we frequent.

    The pear tree, epiphytes, AI and me.

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    I had to go Wiki Commons to find a pear photo because in all my photo files, which are quite extensive now, there were no pears at all. None of these varieties photographed are the little brown one we refer to as a honey pear.
    The before photo of the pear tree. No wonder the crop has been dwindling over the years. Those epiphytes are astonishing.

    I planned to write about our pear tree this week,  mostly because I remembered to take before and after photos this time and the weight of epiphytes was astonishing, This is a multi-grafted pear, presumably not on dwarfing stock, planted by Mark’s father many decades ago. Mark thinks it came with four or five different pear varieties on it to start with, of which there may be two or three left. The most successful is a delicious little honey pear that we harvested most years. But over the years, the tree has grown ever taller, requiring the extension ladder at full reach to pick the fruit, and we have grown correspondingly older and more cautious around ladders.

    The pear tree after its dramatic prune but with some epiphytes still to removed while the ladder is in place. Zach pointed out that the extension ladder has in fact been in place there since he started work here which was 2021.

    Time for drastic action and this required our friendly, neighbourhood arborist. Only time will tell how much the tree will respond in spring with fresh growth. In the meantime, with the ladder still in place and the tree reduced in height, I have asked Zach – as the youngest here – to dislodge the remaining epiphytes.

    A single clump. The rats sit in them to eat macadamia nuts, leaving the shells behind.

    Our epiphytes here are largely seed spread by birds and wind, dominated by native astelias and what we have known as collospermum. “I think that has been reclassified as an astelia,” Mark said. I went to check and he is right – now Astelia hastata. I was hugely amused when checking that fact to find that the deeply irritating AI answer that pops up first whenever I do a net search now, appears to have decided that I, yes – moi, yours truly, is an expert to be quoted on the subject of epiphytes, based largely on this piece I wrote back in 2018. I am very aware of my limitations and it confirmed for me that the unsolicited AI pop up is totally untrustworthy. Skim past it to original and credible sources for better information.

    Artificial intelligence will have to improve a lot before I trust it as a primary source! I am more embarrassed than flattered at this.

    Reclaiming space and light

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    I was amused recently when Zach cast a jaundiced eye over a moderately large planting of clivias and sniffily declared that really, they are just a classier version of agapanthus. When I reminded him of this comment a few days later, he showed even greater disdain, suggesting that maybe clivias just think they are of higher status.

    There is a certain je ne sais quoi to clusters of rural letterboxes in this country and I like that good blue agapanthus by our pink letterbox

    For overseas readers, it is hard to think of a more derided plant in Aotearoa NZ than the humble agapanthus. Maybe a few dwarf or variegated forms are in some gardens, but they are generally dismissed as roadside weeds and every summer brings out the I Hate Agapanthus Collective. Personally, I can see their merits and I enjoy their summer flowers but I am in a minority. I think they suffer from familiarity breeding contempt.

    It is true that the clivia and agapanthus both have long, fleshy, narrow leaves, form very big clumps that can be intimidating to remove if you don’t tackle them with a sharp spade and remove them in sections. They grow in areas shunned by many other plants and are low maintenance. Both set seed freely but the seeds are heavy so fall straight down to germinate close to the parent rather than being spread by wind and bird.

    The clivias flower over a good period of time in winter and spring and the dominant colour is orange. Their ability to thrive in shade and dark areas is much lauded. Agapanthus flower freely over a good period of time in summer and their dominant colour is blue. Their ability to thrive in harsh conditions on roadsides and clay banks is cursed and derided; they are never lauded for their resilience and dependability.

    I have seen gardens afflicted with the TMC syndrome (Too Many Clivias) and as Zach and I stood looking at one area in our garden, I was slightly shocked to see we had slipped into that same gardening affliction.

    The orchids in this area are very lovely but even in this 2023 photo, I can see the ferns and clivias squashing them from the back.

    In times gone by, I used to remember to take before and after photos of garden projects. My mind was always on possible material for my newspaper and magazine writing.  I don’t usually remember these days so I am missing the before photo. The closest I can find is slightly to the right because it is focused on the orchids. But even this area was in danger of getting swamped by encroaching clivias and ferns.

    Behold, the surplus clivias

    I can at least give you some indication of the scale of clivias we removed from just this one area. A friend took them as she wants ground cover in a large, shady area and  – being a precise person – she reported back that she planted 143 clumps – not separate divisions but manageable clumps. That is a lot of clivia from an area that can not have been much more than three or maybe four square metres.

    Zach has evolved his own style for planting and displaying orchids

    Meantime, with a bit of juggling and the creation of another of Zach’s orchid theatres (think, auricula theatre but more au naturelle) of old rings and stumps from our pine trees, it is not at all clear from where those excessive clivias were removed. It does, however, look as though we have given the more precious plants in the foreground room to breathe.

    This was an old area planted out entirely in Felix’s camellias until 1990 when Mark took it in hand. We have kept some of the camellias for shelter as much as anything else but the plants are between 50 and 70 years old and many are very stretched, reaching for the light. We took some stray branches off to let more light through but targeted one camellia to cut back to a strong new growth about a metre above the ground. That meant removing about four metres of growth above that height. It will recover and be bushy and lower for the next decade or maybe two. We do a few camellias each year to let the light back in.

    Gardens, especially large gardens with many trees and shrubs, can close in on you at a pace that is so gradual that you don’t actually notice the change in conditions over time. In a young garden, the focus tends to be on cramming more plants in to give a well-furnished, established look.

    All those clivias that were removed came from the left hand side of the this photo and the middle ground.

    It is the opposite in a mature garden. It becomes an exercise in thinning out plants and keeping light and space within the garden, retaining detail that can get swamped out. In my experience, this is the skill that many garden owners struggle with. Too often, it is left too long to take action and then all they can think to do is a major slash and burn to restore juvenility to the garden. Our aim is always to tread lightly, to carry out such renovation and thinning may be necessary but not to make it blindingly obvious.