September 4, 2010

Between my last post and now, I moved to New York. About a month before I left, I planted a magnolia tree in my backyard. Michelia Alba (白蘭) are hard to keep alive, even in Southern California. They do best in the partial shade of a large tree, so I had to plant a garden umbrella in the soil next to mine. Anyway, they're popular in Asia for their fragrance.

3 comments:

  1. I remember these from SoCal...but now that I think about, I don't think they exist here (except in bakery form).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I had no idea they were called magnolias. Always only knew it by its Chinese name. We have two in our front yard back in socal. In terms of shade, I'm not sure where yours is located (in the sun, facing which direction, etc), but ours are in full sun for at least half of the day. We have more flowers than we know what to do with every year, but then again they're much much taller than us now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And despite having had our trees for about a decade now, I associate these flowers with Taiwan, the women farmers in their straw hats that sell them, and the taxi cabs that always have a string of them on a loop of wire.

    ReplyDelete