Magnolia, azalea, dogwood, and holly are the harmonious quartet of southern landscaping. Magnolia blooms were glorious a couple of weeks ago in Greensboro. The blooms on these evergreen trees are so beautiful and, while leathery to the touch, they are extremely fragile. Little scrapes quickly turn brown and, once cut, they don't last long. In the above photo, the translucent quality shines through.
If you have a mature magnolia tree in your yard, chances are, you have a lot of beetles, too. Magnolias pre-date bees and their original pollinators were beetles. The friendship remains. If you have a magnolia in your yard, you also know they are always shedding something. Sometimes at night, we hear a rustling in the tree and realize it is just a leaf or seed pod dropping to the ground. We have, however, seen an opossum in the tree. Likely, there is a lot more than a few beetles and a lone marsupial living in the tree.
Those beautiful white blooms are the visual "palate cleansers" of the flower world and, fortunately, are plentiful in Greensboro's older neighborhoods. Happy, happy, Thursday!
SPLASH!
Posted by: birdman | Thursday, July 02, 2015 at 07:02 AM
What a beauty! We have several of these here too, and I am going to post one sooner or later...
Posted by: VP | Thursday, July 02, 2015 at 08:55 AM
Very bright! They don't grow up here.
Posted by: William Kendall | Thursday, July 02, 2015 at 04:31 PM