the clumping on the unknown makes me think Pinus densiflora 'Umbraculifera'.

The weeping throw me unless it is a weeping cultivar.

nice pics and nice plants. the weeping pine could well be pinus patula from mexico. pinus montizumae from the same parts is also apparently planted in the italian "lakes district" but it's leaves are longer and stiffer (do not hang down- so that pine would kind of resemble the s.e. native p. palustris, instead. that said, both those pines (and a number of their cousins from the mountains of mexico and central america are lovely plants for the exotic garden in the right kind of climate. FWIW, both species along with p. pseudostrobus and p. durangensis seem to do surprisingly nicely in cool summer spots like coastal "orygun" and similar climate areas of western north america well.

This post was edited by georgeinbandonoregon on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 15:59

Thanks George. You are probably right about the pine, I'm not as good at identifying them. For some reason I'd thought the for-some-reason-somewhat-legendary Chir pine of the Himalayas had weeping needles, but it doesn't. Of course, as you and I both probably agree, the most amazing pine picture in Conifers Around the World is Pinus lumholtzii, but it probably isn't hardy for me and is unobtainable for you - so we will have to keep dreaming about that one.

pinus patula is a good "weeping" pine and its (relatively) easily available while lumhultzii MIGHT be a better weeper (and it might be a bit hardier in some provenances as it grows further north than patula) but it's indeed just not around to try up here. so i will be very happy that i have patula and it grows so well (almost 40' tall in 16 years). chir pine (also tender in most available provenances) seems to have fine textured foliage with maybe a slight droop but not as pronounced as patula and lumhultzii. still a very nice tree but i think the native slash and long leaf pines are reasonable and hardier substitutes???

B. Fincham wants to call the beech 'Roseomarginata' but otherwise it is 'Purpurea Tricolor' ('Tricolor' of general commerce. although there is a distinct cultivar 'Tricolor' that has possibly died out). With that bark and foliage pine would be P. patula, hardy to ~15F. So it can be grown as far north as Seattle etc. but does not make it through 30 year winters. M. delavayi is not related to M. grandiflora, provides different foliage traits; its flowers have a different aroma and behavior also. This also is a California Special. There are many other evergreen magnolias as well, all with their own features - including varying levels of hardiness.

i wouldn't call m delavayi a STRICT "california special". FWIW, it grows and flowers without winter damage at my place near the southern oregon coast (certainly NOT as mild as brookings/gold beach for exmple) and in (milder parts) of the u.k (devon, cornwall. also near london further inland). it probably could grow in more places in the PNW (away from coastal influence) IF properly sited---perhaps used as a wall shrub as the southern magnolia is apparently used in parts of the u.k. agreed there are all sorts of evergreen "magnolias" (now officially including manglietia and michelia) potentially available but fairly few available in the average nursery. mail-order and specialty nurseries though can provide a fair number if one is willing to look.

The double digit minimum temperatures and ability of Cordyline australis to retain lingering trunks starts at Coos Bay. Milder parts of Britain equate to coastal California, with the British USDA Hardiness Zone equivalents going up to 11 when you get out to the Scilly Isles. There was a small M. delavayi on a wall at the Elk Rock Garden in Portland for a time, but it disappeared. I know of no other examples this far north, have never seen it in Seattle even though at least one waterfront estate used to feature Californina Special rhododendrons such as 'Cornubia' (which the owner brought to at least one rhododendron society meeting in bloom during the winter) and various Maddenia.

Yet more than one publicly accessible California collection has specimens of M. delavayi dating back many years. It would not surprise me if the Seattle arboretum planting records were still open to casual public browsing and I had a look I would find that it had been attempted there and failed.

Later: Now that I think more on it I recall seeing a small example in the woods some years ago at the Seattle arboretum. I forgot about it at first because either I haven't been to that part of the collection in recent years or it didn't last.

This post was edited by bboy on Wed, Nov 19, 14 at 10:44

FWIW, arthur lee jacobson (from seattle) in "north american landscape trees" thought this species was worthy of growing (or trying to grow) in our area--at least-in mild parts near the coast. again, sean hogan (another PNW writer) in his book "trees for all seasons" writes that this species has withstood "short periods of 10-12 F. in good drainage when grown in a warm situation...." no doubt this species is going to need/benefit from a PROTECTED spot in most areas in our region but for the right person in the right place it would be worth a try. lets face it, if we ONLY grew the stuff that was "absolutely" hardy the gardens of western oregon and washington (and other places)would probably look more than a bit like duluth or fargo or other places with more challenging climates (and likely a number of "experimental" plant discussion websites and a bunch of nurseries like cistus would close down muy pronto, LOL)---so we continue to experiment and try and sometimes in some places at least succeed with the unexpected wonderful thing. BTW, from direct observation cordyline austalis has been killed to the ground several times in 30 years in coos bay/north bend but always comes back (IOW very similar to it's performance in mild parts of vancouver island, canada---but possibly at longer intervals down here to grow taller stems). likely the "true" line for "permanent" cordylines that rarely if ever are killed to the ground is at bandon close to the ocean (there are several large specimens in town that have not been harmed in at least 16 years) and even more likely somewhere south of port orford in curry county.

This post was edited by georgeinbandonoregon on Wed, Nov 19, 14 at 16:52

BBoy...what do you mean: "M. delavayi is not related to M. grandiflora"

Has been proven they cannot cross?

According to this frustrating and frustratingly small chart, it might be more likely to hybridize with M. virginiana at least based on ploidy level...but of course M. grandiflora and M. virginiana are relatively easy to hybridize in spite of different ploidy. The progeny are sterile as expected.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:487106}}

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Nov 19, 14 at 20:50

I reviewed and commented on the magnolia section of North American Landscape Trees prior to publication. I also am personally acquainted with Sean Hogan, who last time I was at Cistus was cutting down a bunch of trees in the plantings there that included ones that had frozen out. The minimum temperature for the Portland airport is -3F, with locations father south in the Willamette Valley progressively colder so that by the time you are at the Eugene end we are talking about readings like -14F. The Sea-Tac airport has bottomed out at 0F before whereas the record for the Montlake weather station (near where Jacobson lives) is 10F; the Seattle arboretum (which is also nearby) gets down to around 7F.

10-12F in the South, where it is liable to be more or less immediately followed - perhaps the same day - by summer temperatures is not the same as 10-12F in the North, where such temperatures may occur for days (or even weeks, in colder areas) at a time - with afternoons never getting above freezing, and the soil therefore freezing deeply. And the Southern Hemisphere, where some high altitude plants may experience frost any day of the year has a high humidity due to the large area of ocean relative to land mass - the low humidity of Arctic Fronts does not have to be survived there.

These two key points are where Zonal Denialism often falls apart, there is more to it than the lowest temperature a kind of plant has experienced.

Zonal Denial experimentation is fine for plant enthusiasts, I practice it myself. Let's just not be telling those who would be dismayed if their 100 dollar tree froze back or died completely that kinds with previously established lack of hardiness are "perfectly hardy" or "should be hardy here".

I am sure that killer winters thinning the herd are exactly one of the main reasons the general landscape here lacks "interesting" plants, even though garden centers continue to bring up container grown stock from California. Particularly when you head inland, away from salt water surprisingly low minimum temperatures soon become frequent - sometimes within several miles of the beach.

"I reviewed and commented on the magnolia section of North American Landscape Trees prior to publication. "

OK, fine, but given that other intersectional Magnolia hybrids are known, I would not rule out M. delavayi crossing with something else until it's been tried by someone reasonably expected to be able to undertake it. Often, these sort of crosses don't happen simply because no one wants to go through the hassle. I spent over an hour last night picking pollen off a very rare plant, so that I can try to cross with it next summer. Very few people in the grand scheme of things are willing to go through this. People said crossing southern African Heaths with European ones would be impossible, until Kurt Kramer made two such crosses. (alas, not considered commercially viable. The choice of species wasn't optimal IMHO.) AND, nowadays with embryo rescue becoming feasible for horticulture, it's even more likely someone could cross M. delavayi with M. virginiana, if they were really motivated. The article where I found that chart suggested that most Magnolias have a base chromosome count n=19. Maybe M. delavayi is an oddball with a non-standard number...the article that might specifically address that is of course, behind a paywall.

Agree completely with you about hardiness - remember I said at the start of this thread I was sure the species itself would not be worth my time here. (Though the fact one lasted even for 10 years at the NCSU Arboretum suggests it could be a little hardier with hot summers, but not by much...and it may not still be around, cf: though they still list it as living) Southern China is teaming with zn 10 and zn 9 species...the ones we are familiar with in the West are more often than not anomalous outliers or ones that range into colder areas. For example according to the recent massive tome on Chinese flora whose name escapes me, the area where Cycas panzihauensis occurs is not too cold at all, having a very paltry "cold index" - certainly nothing to explain the fact it has consistently weathered single digits in the DC area in collector's gardens. Whilst the other Chinese Cycas species are from only slightly different areas (in terms of winter averages) and have no hope of being anything other than zn 9 hardy. The all time record low of Kunming is 17F at 25ðN and 6200 ft of elevation...in Orlando Florida at ALMOST sea level, it is 18F! Their latitude is very close: 28ðN.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Thu, Nov 20, 14 at 16:01