In the world of home decor, magnolia is a best-selling colour that outlasts every new craze because it is so easy to live with, but its biggest fan would not call it exciting. On the inside of the loose, cup shaped flowers held on a magnolia tree, the sheeny colour has all the allure you could hope for, especially when backed with pink, as here.
Magnolia x soulangeana is widely grown in Mississippi, which is where I took these pictures one January. The flowers can be pale or deep pink or more on the creamy side.
Their folk name, the saucer magnolia, puzzles me because tea saucers are so much flatter than the flowers, but if the reference is to flying saucers, I get it! Being carried on a network of bare stems well before the leaves appear gives them an unearthly look.
Magnolias have an evocative fragrance: my sweetheart says whenever and wherever he smells them, he feels like he’s home in the South.
Shared for Cee’s Flower of the Day. Her choice is a beautiful, velvety iris.
Susan Rushton 
Beautiful tree and a favorite for the flowers and fragrance. I’m seeing buds on mine now in February.
My sweetheart tells me January is unusually early for Mississippi, but that’s the date on my pictures.
Here the buds of the magnolia are still closed and luckily … there is currently a lot of snow in Antwerp.
That is lucky – perhaps they know more than we do! We’ve a smattering of snow here this morning. I hope you’re keeping warm.
Whoever invented magnolia as a paint colour! It’s a dreadful colour – or non-colour as I prefer to call it – and bears no resemblance to any of the lovely magnolia flowers I’ve ever seen.
I agree! The colour of the petals is much prettier and more delicate than any attempt at ‘magnolia’ paint. These flowers are absolutely gorgeous!
It’s one flower I’m a little envious of – they often get touched by frost here.
The flower has the big benefit of life.
These are some of my very favorite trees, and I love their fragrance! I’ve never been able to find a created fragrance that captures what they smell like in real life.
I once bought some magnolia essential oil thinking my sweetheart might like it but he took one sniff and said it didn’t smell anything like the flower.
And most “magnolia” scents are based on the Grandiflora, which has a heavier scent.
Oh, we’re a while away from magnolias yet I Think. And I never realised they had a scent! I’ll take proper notice this year.
That’s a treat awaiting you.
Clearly. I wonder why I’d never noticed though?
We don’t have the same reverence for and associations with the plant here. Have you grown them?
No. I’ve never lived in one place long enough for it to be an option.
Smashing photographs of a beautiful tree. I love the magnolia and you’ve captured it beautifully. As to its use as a wall colour, I’m in favour. I don’t think one should notice the walls in a room, if anything, attention should be on the furniture, curtains and suchlike – if indeed one wanted attention on anything. Nows a magnolia painted room with white furniture and one stunning branch of the magnoangeana would be just perfect in my view.
I’m writing from a magnolia room – I just need the branch!
Flower texture beautifully captured.
Thank you!
This takes me back to the tree on the corner of the street where I grew up. What a sign of spring that was! So eagerly watched for, and so rudely undone by spring storms. But what a moment of beauty! I’ve never heard the name “saucer magnolia,” but I’d side with you on its meaning. They do look suspended in the spring air. Wonderful photos!
I’m happy to have brought back memories, courtesy of the magnolia.
There is something alluring about magnolias, whether scent or color, they do create a fine show every spring. We are at the upper reach of their range, and we always hold our breath that there isn’t a late frost to turn their luminous beauty to ugly brown.
They have a way of doing that here which is partly why a tree full of blooms seems so enchanting to me.
Oh, I love magnolias. I do hope that lockdown lifts so we can visit a spring garden or two this year. I missed out on them last year.
Me too. The one calling me most is Harlow Carr. Doesn’t seem much to ask! 🙂
🙏