What a transformation we have seen this week.

With a sequence of beautiful spring mornings everything has burst into life.

The bright acid green new leaves on the trees look so vivid against backdrops of blossom.

What a great time of year, especially to live in the garden of England.

We have been lucky with no late frosts so the buds from the magnolias have been undamaged.

This is my only problem with magnolias, you can’t deny their large goblet shaped flowers are fabulously flamboyant. But as they are amongst the first of the buds to emerge in spring they so often get caught out by the cold weather and turn brown.

Probably the most commonly known magnolia would be the grandiflora (bull bay), evergreen with glossy dark leathery leaves and highly fragrant, cup-shaped cream flowers, which can reach 25cm in late summer and autumn.

As magnificent as it is, you should bear in mind this tree can reach an ultimate height of 12m and a width of 8m in 20 years so could be a bit large for the smaller garden.

If you have a smaller garden the magnolia stellata is for you as it is a more compact shrubbier variety and has spidery type flowers, which have the added benefit of being more resistant to frost.

Unlike normal magnolias, which prefer sun, stellatas are just as happy in shade. The deciduous shrub reaches 2.5m in height by 4m wide.

For a medium sized deciduous tree of the classic large tulip shape flower, try ‘Red Lion’ , which is pink with cream. Ladybirds like to overwinter in the buds…what a great home for winter!

For a yellow variety ‘Goldfinch’ is one of the earliest of the deciduous with an upright habit thriving even on alkaline soils and does well on chalk.

It has upright tulip shaped flowers and reaches 5-8m in height.

When planting consider a sheltered site and although pretty tolerant of many soils they do not like to dry out, so organic matter added when planting will be beneficial with mulch added around the base.

Preferably repeat this every spring. Pruning is seldom required except for shaping and to remove weak and badly placed branches.