Dear Lovely Reader,

I have included the Magnolia story I shared on my Instagram page in with my Garden Postcard Series.

Enjoy xxx

A Sunday night Springtime tale about a magnificent flowering Magnolia.

Once upon a time Fairy Wren Cottage was owned by a lovely eccentric man for thirty years, he didn’t like flowers to bloom because he thought they were too messy when the flowers died off and fell on the ground. As well as washing the rocks in the concrete lined garden beds he snipped the buds off trees too prevent said flowers from, well flowering and getting “too messy”.

When we first shifted into Fairy Wren Cottage we found a sickly looking whispy tree holding on for dear life, it was out the back between the garden cottage and the shed. The budget eaten up after we found a mini lake under one part of the house there was zero dollars for plants. I was pretty sure that the tree in question was a magnolia so we planted it at the front gate after Michael dug it out of the concrete lined hole it was in. Yes, that’s right, the previous owner planted just about everything in a hole lined with concrete, he was worried about the tree roots spreading.

The first year the Magnolia flowered the previous owners life long friend asked me where I got the tree from, when I explained where, he smiled gently and replied that he couldn’t believe it, that tree was at least 15 years old and he had never seen it flower.

Yes the previous owner had some eccentric gardening ideas but he did the best he could, maintained the garden as best he could and aren’t we all just trying to do that.

Why did I plant the tree next to the front gate? Because this magnificent Magnolia needed its shining moments centre stage each year after being planted in the back row for so long! And haven’t we all felt like that at some point in time!

It feels like there are many morals to the story but I’ll let you contemplate that.

Sending Light & Love, Jude xxx