The publication of Beat Heerdegen and Reto Eisenhut’s splendid new book on Magnoliaceae in late 2019 demonstrates all too clearly how magnolia hybridisation and breeding has moved on apace in the last 20 years. The text may be in German but the photographs and breeding records are not. There are many pages devoted to ‘crosses and new things’.
Hopefully it will be of interest to Cornwall Garden Society members for us to try to share our experience and views on some of the best results we have seen in the expanding national magnolia collection here at Caerhays. The varieties selected here for special mention are only a few of the 80 or so which have been photographed in flower here for the first time over the last few years in The Garden Diary (thediary.caerhays.co.uk). These new varieties represent the work of a number of magnolia breeders from all around the world but, in particular, by Philippe de Spoelberch at the Arboretum Wespelaar in Belgium, Vance Hooper, Ian Baldick and Peter Cave in New Zealand, Otto and Reto Eisenhut in Switzerland and Michael Gottschalk in Germany. In the UK Maurice Foster, John Carlson and the late John Gallagher have created and introduced exciting new hybrids.
Read full article here : The amazing range and variety of new Magnolia hybrids.