Val Bourne pines for lovely magnolia to blossom in springtime and be reminder of lost Cotswolds garden

I’m pining for my old garden in Hook Norton, because it had – and hopefully still has – a huge Magnolia x soulangeana that made April and early May glorious. It was there when I arrived and was possibly 30 or so years old in 1988.

It bore hundreds of pale-pink tulip flowers that emerged mostly before the leathery foliage and in winter you would find lacy leaf skeletons catching the frost. It was lax and leaning, struggling to get away from a vigorous cooking apple tree that I never knew the name of.

I’m sure there’ll be a Magnolia x soulangeana somewhere near you, hopefully escaping the frosts that tend to brown the flowers, for it is the most commonly grown magnolia of all.

This French hybrid is named after Chevalier Etienne Soulange-Bodin (1774-1846), a retired cavalry officer who became the director of the French Royal Institute. He crossed M denudata with M liliiflora in the early 1800s and grew it in his chateau garden at Fromont, near Paris, where it flowered for the first time in 1826.

It was soon being grown in Britain and other parts of Europe, because it’s easy and tolerant of soil and conditions. It was a Victorian favourite and London boroughs like Ealing, where there are lots of Victorian and Edwardian villas, used to be full of them; best seen from the top of a double decker bus.

I haven’t managed to plant any magnolias here at Spring Cottage, although I might sneak one in if I can get away with it. With only a third of an acre, some of it devoted to fruit and vegetables, space is tight, so I will have to select my magnolia carefully. The easiest is magnolia stellata, the star magnolia, because it is tolerant of conditions and slow growing. In most gardens, it resembles a medium-sized deciduous shrub, although it needs moisture-retentive soil and a sunny position to flower well.

This Japanese species has been grown in British gardens since the late 1870s and normally flowers appear in April, smothering the twiggy branches. The gappy petals allow cold, frosty air to escape, so the flowers suffer far less frost damage. There are many on offer and they can be found now.

Magnolia × loebneri Leonard Messel is a fine stellata hybrid raised at Nymans Garden in Sussex in the 1950s. It has 12 rounded spatula-shaped petals and in good springs, when the temperatures are higher, the flowers develop rich-pink petals. Cooler winter conditions produce paler flowers. Whatever the weather, Leonard Messel is best in good light and often takes a while to become established.

Recent New Zealand breeding, carried out by Mark and Abbie Jury, has produced a range of hybrid magnolias that remain relatively small and flower very early on in their lives. Magnolia Burgundy Star has lightly fragrant, hand-sized claret blooms that hover between star and chalice. Black Tulip (probably a hybrid between two early Jury hybrids Vulcan and Iolanthe) has dark port-wine waterlily blooms.

Given good light, this can be covered in bloom between late-April and May. Magnolia Felix Jury, a magnolia that forms a small tree, has bright-pink, rounded flowers that stand out on bare branches. It is an ideal magnolia for a smaller garden, whether added to a border or grown in the lawn as a specimen. Like all magnolias, it will resent root disturbance, so give it a dedicated position because it is impossible to dig under a magnolia without distressing it.

I’m also fond of Susan, pictured above, one of a scented American series known as the Eight Little Girls. This hybrid between M stellata Rosea and M liliiflora Nigra usually escapes frost damage, because the flowers do not appear until late April or May. Now all I need is a bit of garden space.

l I can highly recommend the follow-ing very readable monographs, entitled The Plant Lover’s Guides, jointly published by Kew and Timber Press @ £17.99, which are displayed right