Spring Has Sprung

For the past month or so my Magnolia tree has been looking rather pathetic, I kept telling myself it was because the buds that loose a leaf as they come into bloom, but still the tree was a sad sight.  Earlier this week I noticed a bloom had opened up but it was to high for me to photograph, and the next day when I thought I'd give it a try anyway the flower was already fading.

Don't you just love a Magnolia Tree in the Spring?

Let me take a minute and tell you about my Magnolia tree, when we were closing on the house we have now DH and I drove past a nursery vendor with a trailer full of plans set up on the side of the road.  Now we are a "drive by couple" and we will slow down and look at things like that as well as yard sales and so on.  If something catches our eye we will stop and if not we just keep going.  We were completely past the turn, when I spot the Magnolia Tree.  I holler and we drive around the block and head back.  Now I can tell you for a fact these trees are normally quite expensive, upwards of $100 for the size of this lone tree.  But what does the man tell us?  A mere $25!  I was so floored all of my bargaining instincts flew right out the window.  Yes please!  Here's the money!

So we closed on the house and within a month or two settled our tree in the front yard.  Magnolia trees grow very slowly and I'm not certain how old it was when we purchased it but it was about 6 feet tall at the time. It's been in the ground here for 8 years now.  It didn't bloom it's first couple of years because the children in the neighborhood would come up into our yard and steal it's leaves off!  But now we have a nice picket fence and the tree has been blooming every year since.  I call the blooms dinner plate size, pie plate size also comes to mind.  Surprisingly my neighbor has the same exact subspecies and her tree has been in the ground for about 20 years.  They are no match for the Beauties you see in Walt Disney World, but they are pretty and very Florida in their own right.

What does Spring make you want to do?  Perhaps you're a Spring Cleaner?  I think we all are to some extent.  For me I want to root up the flower beds and plant something lovely.  It's so hot here in the summer flower choices have to be carefully selected or else they wont make it through the summer, which is the case with many of the beautiful spring flowers in our nurseries right now.