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Sickly Magnolia
The Wingco
Posts: 9
I wouldn't have known that this was a magnolia in a mate's garden, as it has no shape and hasn't flowered in years. Could it be down to soil type?
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Posts
Has it ever been fed?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I doubt it - he's not what you'd call green-fingered. Mate lives some distance away so don't see/talk to him that often, but he always grills me on this.
Poor thing's half starved and probably parched as well - he needs to create a circle of bare soil about 3ft in diameter around the trunk - that grass is taking all the nutrient and moisture. It's no wonder it's struggling.
When he's removed a circle of grass he should feed it now and again in the autumn with a slow release fertiliser - Fish Blood & Bone is what I use for most things - apply according to the directions on the pack - then a thorough watering of rainwater or limefree tapwater - several buckets full in the first instance - and then a generous mulching with organic material - well-rotted organic farmyard manure from the garden centre is what I use.
Then throughout the summer a bucketful of water twice a week, more often in hot dry spells.
He'll have a much happier magnolia next year and one to be proud of in a couple of years' time.
Ask him how well he'd be performing if someone else was having all his food and water
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hi dove from above I have a white magnolia it is pretty but the flowers on it don't last hardly and there gone are they short lived please ...thank you..
The friend must also resist the temptation to prune the tree. Magnolias don't like it!
Hi Sharon - the problem with magnolias is that they tend to flower at the time of year when the UK is prone to spring showers and blustery winds - their beauty is therefore fleeting, but all the more wonderful for that
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Many thanks for that advice Dove.