Trees encore!

Given that the rain continues to fall, and no gardening is possible it seems a good moment to return to the subject of trees, especially as someone has written to me giving the thumbs down to oaks - too big and too slow - and suggesting instead Liquidambers, Planes and Tulip trees. All three  are lovely, but all  are pretty big, especially the last two.Plane trees (usually Platanus orientalis) often to be seen lining are roads, are not only majestic, have reasonably good autumn colour, attractive bark, and as far as I know are trouble free, putting up with most conditions including drought. What they need is space. This is less true of the tulip tree (Liriodendron); L. tulipifera is large but tall rather than broad, so to that extent it takes up less space, but it is not for a small garden.  The flowers that give it its common name I find curious rather than atttractive, and you have to wait for them, but the autumn colour - butter yellow - is much to desired. The reason that it does not so-to-speak get into my top ten is that it likes both humidity and shelter from winds which makes it a difficult tree for me and no doubt many others. I have planted one, since I could not resist a Gamm Vert promo - these very much to be looked out for. It was immediately attacked by rabbits, so for the moment it is multi-stemmed, and I have given it as protected and as damp a site as I can find, but I am not too hopeful.  Meanwhile there is everything to be said for Liquidambers. With its smart maple like leaves and at least when young, regular almost triangular growth, its moment of gory is the autumn when its leaves turn a dazzlingly mix of reds and yellows, depending on your variety and cultivar. There is now a good deal of choice. I suspect all are good. Many of them can be seen at La Cousiana,  an absolutely must of a garden, roughly between Lectoure and Condom. It started life as private arboretum in which the collecting bug overrode more aesthetic considerations, but in recent years it has been turned by the Delannoys into an outstanding garden, with particularly around the house a very English feel. Meanwhile,Adeline,mentioned in my last blog, have a national collection, and if you want special Liquidambers consult their catalogue.

My daily walk usually takes me alongside our local 'rivière', stream would be the English term for it. It is attractive at all times, but especially so at this time of year when the catkins of the alders begin to colour. Alders are big and they lack autumn colour, which for me is a big minus. They also like damp, less so Alnus cordata, the so-called Italian alder, which is a tree well worth knowing about. It seems to put up with most conditions, grows quickly, and is always smart, but particularly so in Winter and early Spring. I have planted A.rubra, which gets a good right up in Hilliers. Unfortunately it was strimmed, so it is now smaller than when I bought it. It is also multi-stemmed, but that with an alder can be an advantage. On verra.

For something much more showy what about a magnolia?  I have a bee in my bonnet about them though I am not referring here to the evergreen Magnolia grandifloras, which are not amongst my favourites - overpowering in their evergreenness, and though having lots of flowers, somehow lacking in flower power, since often too high to be seen, and flowering in dribs and drabs. They are also fragrant, but you tend to have to put your nose quite near to the flower to appreciate this, and since they are often rather high, this is usually impossible.  But I love the deciduous variety, of which there are many hundreds, and increasingly so, as new cultivars appear every year. I also think that they do well in this region, but are underused. People seem frightened by them, perhaps because they look so exotic, and at the same time fragile. Also do they demand acid soil which most of us have not got, though the nearer you are to the Atlantic the more likely you are to have it? My answer to the last question is on the whole not, though some species - M.salicifolia for example, probably do. I also think that they withstand drought much more readily than most people think. I first noticed this in England in the very hot summer of I think 1979. when all around azaleas, hydrangeas, magnolias, etc were clearly under great stress, the magnolias looked as fresh as ever, but I have noticed the same phenomenon here.  I have planted rather a mixed bunch here, including M. soulangeana Brozzoni, M.Peppermint Stick, M.Star Wars, a very good strong pink, which seems to grow fast, and M. soul. San Jose. I hope to plant more. Most of them are on a south facing bank, so my belief that they withstand drought will be truly tested, but so far so good.  In other gardens in the region I have planted M. Manchu Fan, with very large creammy white flowers which last a little longer than most, and M. Wada's Memory, whose flowers do not last any length of time, but a tree in full flower is a breath-taking sight. In fact magnolia flowers are often short lived, but then most intense experiences are brief.  Partial shade might help to prolong them, though I notice that Adeline do not recommend this.  There is also the threat of frosts which will not hurt the plant, but will spoil the look of the flowers, but this seems to be less of a problem here than in England, though of course we can have late frosts.

I shall now doubt return to magnolias, but meanwhile we have had the 'tempête', my second since I have been in France. Here not too much damage: a few tiles off the roof, and a great oak, which unfortunately has fallen into others, and how we disentangle them is going to be a problem.  But there are advantages in not having park land and cedars. Where I was in 1999 the devastation was enormous. More exciting for me was the discovery by chance in our local nursery at Lombez - for the moment his details escape me, but he is on the main Toulouse road, on the left going to Toulouse, just before you hit the long straight stretch - of Cornus officinalis. It appears to be an upmarket Cornus mas, with the very early yellow flowers, and not much else, though there are some pretty variegated ones. Indeed I think of Cornus mas as a being a poorman's witch hazel, above all lacking the smell, though in my view only Hamamelis Pallida has fragrance that really travels. Cornus officinalis is a rather bigger animal growing up 10 metres. The flowers may be bigger as well. They are certainly earlier, that is to say they are out now. It has attractive bark, good autumn colour, and is not fussy about where it lives. What more could you ask for.