Tag Archives: Jury magnolias

Magnolia delight

The roadside. On the far left is Honey Tulip and there is a Black Tulip also there that is not visible. Fairy Magnolia Cream, Serene, Iolanthe, Felix Jury, Athene and Fairy Magnolia Blush.

I see it was twelve years ago that I wrote about generous gardeners. Not those who readily share plants but those who plant up areas for other’s enjoyment. I remembered that article this week because of a beautiful stretch of roadside on the outskirts of our small town that I drive by almost every time I leave our property. It is a spectacular row of magnolias that goes from strength to strength every year. It edges grass paddocks where the owners graze a few stock.

Looking back from halfway along the row

The thing about this row of magnolias is that its purpose is to delight passers-by. The owners, Pat and Brian, can’t see it from their house which is on the adjacent section. Pat, in particular, is a keen gardener and they keep a detailed and heavily ornamented garden around the house but the row of magnolias is for the benefit of passing traffic, be it in vehicles or on foot.

Magnolia Athene
Fairy Magnolia Cream

I called in yesterday to ask their permission to share the photos and, with their usual generous spirit, they said ‘any time. Our garden is your garden’. I had thought I might ask Pat if I could photograph her but it was a rushed visit and I didn’t want to embarrass her. She commented that she thought the magnolias were better this year than ever before and many people are admiring them. “I tell everybody they are Abbie’s magnolias.”

Magnolia Felix Jury just finishing flowering in Pat and Brian’s roadside row

We have had this conversation before. What you have to understand is that this row of magnolias is not far off being a complete collection of Jury magnolias. In vain, do I tell her that they are Felix and Mark’s plants. In Pat’s mind, they are mine.

I do remember giving Pat this plant of Honey Tulip
Honey Tulip – Mark’s only yellow on the market. So far.

She remembers me giving her most of the plants. I remember giving her one and may have given her a few more but she was a very good customer of ours in the days when we used to retail plants. I have always admired Pat’s eye for a good plant. She lacks any curiosity about plants, rarely remembers names, won’t grow bulbs because they are untidy when they finish flowering but she has a good eye and picks out plants she likes solely on their appearance. She has a garden with plants like Camellia yuhsienensis, Rhododendron veitchianum and other choice varieties tucked in with garden centre utility options and plants she has picked up on special. I find her approach to gardening refreshingly honest and unpretentious while also being very capable.

Pat’s plant of Rhododendron veitchianum. It wasn’t until I got up close to it that I realised the striking colour contrast was cineraria.

What makes these magnolias interesting to us is that Pat and Brian garden very differently to how we do. The magnolias are planted in the open, exposed to pretty much every wind that blows. They are not mulched and the ground around them is kept bare. They are not trimmed or clipped. I would guess that they were well fertilised when getting established but are now left to their own devices. In those exposed, open conditions,  they are performing better than many of the ones we have here in our own garden which is sheltered from most winds.

Serene is one of Felix Jury’s lesser known hybrids but worthy of more attention. A later season magnolia, it is very lovely.

Wind is a big issue in this country of long thin islands set amidst vast oceans. Wind hardiness is a big factor in the selection of magnolias in our breeding programme. Petals that are of a softer, thinner texture and flower forms that are looser in structure fall apart when it blows hard. We see it every year on some of the magnolias here – particularly M. sprengeri ‘Diva’, M. sargentiana var. robusta and even the stellatas (star magnolias) and their hybrids. We have seen spectacular displays on some of these and similar magnolias in less windy countries – memorably in the Dandenongs in Australia and in the north of Italy. We don’t have that leeway here. So, it is interesting to see the Jury magnolias in very open conditions, still putting up mass displays of blooms that are largely untroubled by the many storm fronts that pass over in our early spring time.

A small plant of Magnolia Iolanthe with many OTT blooms

A few doors down from Pat and Brian’s home is a house with this little Magnolia ‘Iolanthe’ in bloom – showy enough for me to stop the car and photograph from the roadside. The plant can only have been in the ground two or three years and I haven’t noticed it in flower before, although there is a young plant of ‘Felix Jury’ a few metres away in the same garden that catches my eye when in flower, every time I drive past. But look at ‘Iolanthe’ strutting her stuff! I counted around 30 blooms and opening buds on this very small plant.

Magnolia Iolanthe

I am a big fan of front gardens and roadside plantings. They make the world a better place for us all, or at least for those of us who notice them.

The legacy of Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ and modest Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’

Not the best photo but I can assure you it was the best sight on its day – looking through trees to ‘Lanarth’ in the distance

As I paused to admire the glorious purple of Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ through the trees, the thought occurred to me that the vast majority of the red magnolias raised and released around the world since the mid 1980s have descended from this particular tree down by the stream in our park. Some are several generations down the line but they trace their genes back to our tree.

Our plant of Magnolia campbelllii var mollicomata ‘Lanarth’

Botanically, our Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ is the form distributed by leading UK nursery, Hilliers, back in the 1960s, Magnolia campbellii var. mollicomata ‘Lanarth’. Felix Jury imported it at considerable expense and thank goodness he did.

Magnolia liliiflora Nigra – red but otherwise unremarkable
and the shrubby tree of M liliiflora Nigra at about 60 years of age. It flowers later in the season so we think must have been the mother of the red hybrids, not the pollen donor.

To be fair, it wasn’t just ‘Lanarth’ that launched the platform for new generations of red magnolias. The plant of Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’ in the garden border behind our house was the other parent, almost certainly the seed-setter. In the heady world of magnolias, liliiflora is not a showstopper. Our plant is more sturdy shrub than tree, the blooms are not large, typical liliiflora form which is not showy and the flower colour has none of the rich glow that magnolias can have. But it is red both inside and outside on the petals. Mark tells me we are reputed to have a particularly good form of liliiflora ‘Nigra’ in this country in terms of its solid red bloom without the inner petal being white.

Breeders and enthusiasts around the world had been trying to create good red magnolias before, like the optimistically named ‘Chyverton Red’,  ‘Pickard’s Ruby’ and ‘Pickard’s Garnet’. We have one example here but I only have one tiny photo of it and I have just found out that the name we have on it is wrong. I will have to take more notice of it when it flowers this year and try and work out what it is, only out of curiosity because it is not remarkable.  

Felix looked at his plant of ‘Lanarth’ and wondered if he could get a good-sized, red campbellii-type flower. He had already done his other breeding to reach ‘Iolanthe’, ‘Milky Way’, ‘Athene’ and the other four Felix Jury cultivars. And so he created ‘Vulcan’, a breakthrough in its day. ‘Lanarth’ contributed the flower size and form, solid colour inside and out but also the translucence, tree form and scent. M. liliiflora ‘Nigra’ contributed solid colour, smaller tree stature and, importantly, red.

Magnolia ‘Vulcan’ this morning

We first released ‘Vulcan’ in 1989, in that wonderfully under-stated way of that era. I don’t think we sent any plant material overseas at the time but bits of it soon winged their way around the world and the rest, as they say, is history. ‘Vulcan’ is not without its flaws. It flowers too early for frosty areas (as does ‘Lanarth’); it only achieves its density and purity of colour in warmer climates and even then tends to fade out to murky purple as the season progresses. But for its time, it was a breakthrough. It was the only plant we ever released that we could track its flowering from north to south of the country by the telephone calls we received. Even today, 35 years on, it is a showstopper at its best. I had two young tradeswomen painters in a couple of weeks ago and one of them asked me about the ‘black magnolia’ as she spotted the first buds opening, declaring she had never seen anything like it before.

Our mailorder catalogue from 1989

Felix didn’t go any further with breeding magnolias after ‘Vulcan’ but encouraged Mark in turn. And it was Mark who created the next generation which included ‘Black Tulip’ and ‘Felix Jury’.  Other NZ breeders followed suit – notably Vance Hooper and Ian Baldick.

It seems that ‘Black Tulip’ and Felix Jury’ have become two of the more significant breeder parents around the world. I see many, many red seedlings on international magnolia pages and they are clearly descended from those early red hybrids here.

Magnolia ‘Vulcan’

Felix named one red magnolia, Mark has named and released three but there is a fourth in the pipeline. We are hoping it will be ready for release internationally next year or maybe 2026. We describe it as a ‘Vulcan’ upgrade. It flowers a little later and has an exceptionally long blooming season and is a different hue of red, without a tendency to the purple undertones inherited from ‘Lanarth’. Solid colour and cup and saucer form which is our preference – it stands out here as good and we have high hopes for it across a range of climates. I won’t share photos until we have a release date.

Magnolia campbelli var mollicomata ‘Lanarth’

The new selection also traces its origin to the lovely ‘Lanarth’ in our park. That ‘Lanarth’ originated from a seed collection by plant hunter, George Forrest, in 1924 in southeastern China, near the Burmese border. Only three seed germinated back in the UK and this one was the best, named for the garden where it was raised in Cornwall. Those are quite long odds for what turned out to be such a significant plant.

While we may only have named and released four red magnolias from the Garden of Jury, with one more to come, we have many, many magnolias on the property that come from the same breeding lines. This lovely one that won’t be selected for release is another seedling from the batch that gave both ‘Black Tulip’ and ‘Felix Jury’.

Magnolia time

Blue skies and space to let magnolias grow to their potential certainly helps the display

We are currently at peak magnolia and this year has been a relief. Flowering in the past two years has been – dare I say it – pretty damn disappointing. Very wet springs saw blooms weather-mark badly, infected by some form of blight, and turn to droopy brown slush. They were not inspiring at all and I was beginning to wonder if one effect of climate change might be to take out the impressive splendour of our flagship plant family. This year they are magnificent after a bit of a stuttering start. Mind you, we have been blessed with perfect conditions – clear, calm and dry with only the occasional storm or downpour.

June 13, which is very early for us. The display this year never actually improved on this although more snow fell.

The season started unusually early. The first flowers on M. campbellii var campbellii opened at the end of May before the leaves had even fallen and winter was upon us. Every year I like to get out and photograph our tree against the maunga, Mount Taranaki, and the first photo of that was on July 6, before the mountain even had its full cover of snow. Similarly, ‘Vulcan’, ‘Burgundy Star’ and M. campbellii var mollicomata ‘Lanarth’ all opened their first blooms in early June and early July which is mid-winter here. Interestingly, that early start proved to be a false start on all four of them. They never really recovered from it to give us their usual mass display of splendour. Some are limping on, still with flowers, but the overall display from them has not had the usual breathtaking oomph. There are always some disappointments and this is the first year I can remember when those varieties have been rather ho-hum. We are concluding that an early start can in fact be a problem more than a promise.

Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’ on the left with white ‘Manchu Fan’
Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’.

The main flowering on  the rest has more than made up for the disappointing. Day after day of blue skies have delivered us perfect blooms with none of the previous problems of blight turning petals to mush. We know it is a good season because Felix’s Magnolia ‘Atlas’ is looking splendid. When we first released it, Mark described it as being like a giant pink cabbage and one of the largest magnolia flowers in the world at the time. It is the only one of ours that seems to perform better overseas than here. Year after year, I have struggled to get good photos of unblemished blooms because it does not like our spring storms but this year, this year it is perfect.

Magnolia ‘Atlas’
Magnolia nitida, for those of you who like to see something different

We have many magnolias. I have no idea how many. We also have space so we can allow trees to grow to the size they wish. Some of our magnolias are species and some are named cultivars from other breeders but the vast majority of our plants are seedlings from the breeding programme and there are literally hundreds of those. While we have only ever named twelve Jury magnolias (eight from Felix, four from Mark and another four of Mark’s are in the pipeline for release), they are the pick from several thousand seedlings. The majority end up getting chainsawed out as being of insufficient merit to retain but some are very good. They don’t meet our stringent criteria for releasing a new plant but they are good enough to keep across the property.

Just an unnamed seedling but looking very pretty this week

Finally, I saw a death notice recently for writer, gardener and magnolia lover, the inimitable Biddy Barrett. We have always referred to this pretty pink seedling as ‘Biddy’s Pink’ as she was adamant it should be selected for release. Mark didn’t agree so it remains a one-off plant but R.I.P Biddy. Your pink lives on.

Biddy’s Pink – a reference name only. This one has never been named and released.
Biddy’s Pink – pinker than Iolanthe but otherwise very similar
Mark’s Magnolia ‘Honey Tulip’
Felix’s ‘Milky Way’
And a purple seedling to cover the current range of colours in deciduous magnolias

Signs of spring

First published in Woman magazine, July 2022 edition and reprinted here with additional photographs.

Magnolia campbellii is always the first to open a flower bud, seen here framed against the distant peak of Mount Taranaki.

I am a Jury. Ergo, I love deciduous magnolias. Why does one follow the other, you may wonder. My very late father-in-law, Felix Jury, was the creator of such varieties as Magnolia ‘Vulcan’, ‘Iolanthe’ and others and we still have the original plants here in the garden at Tikorangi. I am married to the man who created ‘Black Tulip’, ‘Felix Jury’, ‘Honey Tulip’ and ‘Burgundy Star’ with more to come soon.

I have long declared that the first blooms on the magnolias herald the start of a new gardening year. The first one to open for us is always the pink Magnolia campbellii in our park. It is one of the earliest harbingers of spring and we usually get the first flower a few days after the winter solstice which is around June 21. 

Enter Matariki which we celebrated as a nation on June 24 this year. While we accept the Gregorian calendar dating back to 1582, that only determines the elements of time which are derived from Earth’s position in the solar system – such as the length of individual months, equinoxes and solstices. The assignment of certain dates to celebrations is an arbitrary human decision. The determination that January 1 is the start of a new year is based entirely on northern hemisphere tradition and it happens to come 9 or 10 days after the winter solstice. What I find fascinating is that Maori arrived at the same conclusion, give or take a few days. It may be six months out of step as far as the calendar goes but it is synchronised with the seasons.

Matariki is determined by the rising in the sky of the star formation generally known as the Pleiades and the start of the new lunar year. It just so happens that Matariki occurs within a few days of the winter solstice in New Zealand. It seems perfectly logical to me and of much greater relevance to my gardening year than the January 1 date.

Our pink Magnolia campbellii is not quite as predictable as the solstice dates and it doesn’t hit its peak display until well into July, but that first bloom bravely opens around the time of Matariki and is a significant seasonal marker for me. Each year, I don my woolly gloves on fine frosty mornings and head out to capture the one beautiful line of sight we have with the blooms on the bare tree and the snowy slopes of te mounga – Mount Taranaki – behind. I am using a zoom lens – te mounga is somewhere over 35km distant.

Over time, most magnolias grow into trees. From left to right are an unnamed pink seedling, Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’ and Magnolia ‘Manchu Fan’.

That magnolia was first sold in New Zealand in the latter half of the nineteenth century by a Lower Hutt nurseryman commonly referred to as Quaker Mason on account of him being a Quaker. It was also the first magnolia planted in our garden by my father-in-law, Felix Jury in the early 1950s. This pink M. campbellii is probably the most recognisable form in the country. Interestingly, that is unusual internationally. In the wild, most campbelliis are white. The pink ones are largely limited to a small area around Darjeeling in India and we should count ourselves lucky that Quaker Mason just happened to get a particularly good form of the unusual pink one to popularise here.

Looking up into the floral skyspaper of Magnolia sargentiana robusta

The magnolia flowering season from late June to September is a special time of year for us. We have many magnolias, both named varieties and species and unnamed hybrids from the breeding programme. This is a plant family where the larger the plants get, the bigger show they make.

For me, the deciduous magnolias hold pride of place. That display of bare blooms on a tree with no foliage can take my breath away. Because we have large trees, I am often looking up from below and I describe it as floral skypaper.

The purple petals of Magnolia campbellii var mollicomata ‘Lanarth’ forming a carpet beneath.

When I look down, I see the petal carpets on the ground and I have a great fondness for petal carpets. However, I will concede that they are not great on paths, driveways and sealed areas where the carpet can soon turn to slippery brown sludge. We will use a leaf rake or leaf blower on sealed areas but leave the petals on grass or garden.

And looking up to ‘Lanarth’ against a grey wintry sky

Most of the deciduous magnolias are Asiatic in origin – particularly areas of China, northern India and Nepal. The exception is the one truly yellow deciduous species – Magnolia acuminata – which is from North America. It is one of the parents of all the yellow hybrids that have become available in the last 25 years.

USA is also the homeland of the most popular evergreen magnolias which are widely grown here. These are characterised by heavy, leathery leaves and large, white flowers. I am not a fan of the evergreen grandiflora types; the ratio of flower to foliage is not high enough for my liking. I prefer the 100% flower to 0% foliage of most deciduous varieties.

Michelias, on the other hand, are all Asian in origin with many also being found in tropical areas, so into Southern China, Vietnam and Thailand. These are also evergreen but with softer, smaller leaves than the American leathery ones, a higher ratio of flowers and they are smaller growing overall. Botanically, they are magnolias but they look very different to the deciduous magnolias and they fill a different role in the garden.   

Magnolia Iolanthe in pink
Magnolia Apollo in purple
Magnolia Black Tulip in red
Magnolia Lotus in white
  • Deciduous magnolias come in shades of pink, purple, red, white and yellow.
  • Magnolias are ancient, evolving before bees emerged. It is thought that they were originally pollinated by beetles. Now they provide a food source for bees at a time of short supply in late winter.  
  • We get deeper, richer colouring in magnolias in New Zealand. It is likely to be related to our soils, climate and the clarity of light here. The same plant can look very different with the colour washing out, particularly in Northern Europe and the UK where winters are longer and colder and light levels lower.
  • New Zealand is recognised internationally as leading the way on breeding red magnolia hybrids, initiated by Felix Jury with ‘Vulcan’ and continued by Mark Jury, Vance Hooper and Ian Baldick.
  • No, you can not get very large blooms on a deciduous magnolia that will stay a small plant under two metres. Smaller growing varieties will have smaller blooms and the vast majority of deciduous magnolias are trees, not shrubs.
  • If you have a magnolia where the buds either drop off or fail to open properly, it is a sign  either of frost damage or pest damage by rats or possums.
  • When deciduous magnolias have new leaves that are clearly distorted on opening, it is an indication of spray drift. Lawn spray is the main culprit. If you feel you must spray your lawn, don’t do it in early spring when the leaf buds on magnolias are about to break into growth.
  • The limited range of species that were all that was available in the past could take 15 to 20 years before they set flower buds. Nowadays, you can expect magnolias to bloom within a couple of years of planting and some will even be sold with flower buds.
Magnolia Honey Tulip in yellow

Giving thanks for when midwinter turns to the cusp of spring

I was going to limit myself to a theme of red and yellow but te mounga (the mountain, Mount Taranaki) was looking so very beautiful, I wanted to share the glorious sight again

I have twice heard our government give a strong message to New Zealanders to get home urgently while they still can. The first time was in March last year when then deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, said it and it was certainly chilling. At the time, I wondered if he was being overly dramatic. He wasn’t. Within days, flights had slowed and then they stopped entirely for a time.

We heard the same message from our Prime Minister on Friday, this time aimed at New Zealanders in Australia. It was just as chilling. Get home in the next seven days or risk being stranded indefinitely.

And Magnolia campbellii is coming to its peak flowering

I saw a tweet come down my line from a journalist that made me laugh – in that ‘if you don’t laugh, you will cry’ sort of desperation. I went to look for it this morning to screenshot it for this post but it has gone. She must have decided it was too flippant when there are thousands of our citizens in Australia scrambling frantically to find flights and then get negative Covid tests within the required time frame. It showed two small boats with people on them and the caption read: ‘Is this our Dunkirk moment?’

Covid is not done with us yet. Even though Mark and I are Pfully Pfizered, as I say, I am deeply grateful to be in one of the very, very few countries in the world that has no Covid past the border and my gratitude for how our government has managed it so far remains strong. I just wish we didn’t have so many whingers and moaners looking for fault. Just look beyond our borders to see how bad it could have been here, too.

Narcissis Twilight – blooming their little hearts out down in the park

On a perfect morning like yesterday, I could not think of a better place to be. Magnolia season has started, the narcissi are coming into bloom and we are at peak snowdrop. It may still be midwinter here but we are on the cusp of spring. All I have to offer is colour. And flowers.  

Magnolia Vulcan – where the passion for red magnolias started here
Magnolia Felix Jury followed
And then came Burgundy Star, shown here, and Black Tulip which is not yet showing its full colour

We always get the best red shades on the earliest blooms each season and we get the very best shades of red overall. They don’t look this colour in all climates and soils across the world.

Mark’s Lachenalia reflexa hybrid

While the red magnolias dominate the early season, when it comes to lachenalias, it is the yellow and oranges as well as red that bloom first. We have to wait for later in the season to see the less vigorous but arguably more desirable blues, lilacs, pinks and whites.

Hippeastrum aulicum

Still with the bulbs, the first hippeastrums are opening. We don’t go in for the hybrids much, preferring the evergreen species of H.aulicum and H. papilio which have settled in very happily to their permanent homes in the woodland.

Camellia impressinveris

It is, of course, camellia season. I spent some time this week writing a piece about camellias for an overseas publication so I am a bit camellia-d out but the yellow species never fail to thrill, even if they are not as floriferous as the more usual varieties.

One of Mark’s seedling vireyas

The big-leafed rhododendrons down in the park are just starting to break bud and show colour but the sub-tropical vireya rhododendrons in the upper gardens flower intermittently all year so we always have some in bloom. This a scented red which Mark raised for the garden that has never been named or put on the market.

In the chaos of the wider world, home has never looked safer or offered more solace for the soul.