Yesterday I looked at my magnolia, the leaves going crispy at the edges and holey and looking decidedly raggedy. I thought oh no! It might be dying. Or something's eating it. I looked up online and found some information that said well your magnolia might have too much salt and you planted it in the wrong place.
More urgent than a dentist (or a pap smear for that matter) I decided would ask the plant doctors at Kings. They just said she's deciduous and going to lose her leaves anyway, and it's entirely normal.
huh.
I went for a second opinion at Palmer's Planet. Much the same thing.
Now feeling rather foolish that I expected Magnolia to be permanently pretty I realise sometimes plants have their bad hair days...or months. The prettier they are the worse they look going into dormancy.
So I needn't have worried anyway. But then, I suppose its like going to a dentist with holes in your teeth and being told don't worry they are all going to come out anyway. I could just have false teeth instead. And I suppose a fake christmas tree or magnolia will look kind of out of place on my front lawn.
In other news there is a chill in the air and ice on my car this morning. We may be in for frosty mornings all this month, and I have just planted up around the camellia so she's got companions - fruit salad plant, begonia, tree ferns, heuchera, spider plant, foxglove, bluebells, angelica, cyclamen blackcurrant. All these plants were already in my garden, I just moved them around. I have moved my two palm stumps to this bed to make a sort of sitting feature, or somewhere to rest your bags on while fumbling for the door key.
The next big thing to worry about is church flowers for May. What am I going to do? I thought of having bunches of daffodils and sheep grazing them. Tete a tete daffodils are $12 a pot. Or I could have giant cyclamen. They look like they swallowed a whole lot of growth hormones to get that big. They are also $15 a pot. Anyway I won't think about it now, I will think about it on Sunday. No point worrying about things four days away.
Now what do I need to worry about today? Getting dressed and braving the autumn chill is my next order of business.
