Mount Lofty Botantic Gardens - Magnolias

If ever you needed proof that spring has sprung, then head to the Mount Lofty Botanic garden. But you'd better be quick because the magnolia gully won't stay like this for much longer. In fact you've probably only got another two weeks because this splash of colour is short but well worth it. Robert Hatcher's a very lucky man. He tends this little patch of paradise, just the other side of Mount Lofty and he remembers when all of this was first planted here in the mid seventies. Now discerning picnicker's make a bee-line for this forest of colour and for a tree with an exotic and colourful past. "The introduction of magnolias into country's like Australia and Europe is a fascinating story. It's thought that they originated in China but the Buddhist monks actually took magnolia with them when they went to Japan and the early part of this century nurseries and plant breeders in England and Europe sent off their plant hunters back into China and Japan to bring back plants just exactly like these that were seeing here at Mount Lofty Botanic Garden. There are two types of Magnolia, the one that originates from the United States is the first one that actually was produced in horticulture but later on they discovered more in China and Japan and the variety there is quite extraordinary and those are the ones that have really taken off in cultivation and he ones that people really know about."

The good news is that you don't need to live in China, Japan or the hills to enjoy the subtle pleasures of the magnolia. The buzz that comes from growing these messengers of spring is available to any committed gardener. "Robert the magnolias have beautiful subtle colours and they look so delicate but how hard are they to grow here in South Australia for the home gardener?" "There reasonably difficult but again if you do the right thing they will be able to grow here in Adelaide. They require a reasonably rich, humous moist soil that is sort of tending towards acid but not too acid, around neutral would be fine. One of the things that you have to be certain in is that you don't allow them to dry out, they do not like dry conditions at all, they really like humidity." They can also be grown in tubs but if you want to see Magnolias in their full glory head to the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden. Magnolia Gully is an easy walk from the garden's lower carpark off Lampert Road at Piccadilly.

For more information you can email info@postcards-sa.com.au