This also came from China.

One. There is just one little brightly coloured bud on our entire magnolia tree. Tomorrow there will be more and then more and then one morning we will get up, look out the kitchen window, and see our entire magnolia tree in bloom.

I always thought magnolia trees were had large pink and white flowers. When I bought our tree it was small and sported only green leaves. When spring arrived, red-purple flowers appeared. Flowers with long droopy petals. It looked nothing like the magnolia trees with which I was familiar.

After a visit to the gardening centre I knew what I had was either a Japanese or Chinese flowering magnolia. A species of magnolia that was not found in Southwest Ontario in the past.

Cooped up inside, waiting out the quarantine, my wife and I will delighted when the tree is heavy with blooming flowers. Heck, we were excited just to see a little, rain-wet bud.