Still love my beautiful Chinese tree after all these years

Lovely flowers of my Manglietia insignis here in full bloom.

They don’t open all at once, but sporadically, evenly decorating the tree with thick green buds with a slight burgundy tinge as well as fully-opened, exotic, waxy, pink and white, succulent-like flowers.

Native to western China, the Himalayas and Burma, the tree, sometimes called the Red Lotus, is evergreen here in coastal BC, hardy to Zone 7, growing 35 to 40 feet, and related to the magnolia family. Insignis means “remarkable”.

Mine is now 23 years old. I got it from Piroche Plants in Pitt Meadows a couple of years after I started writing garden stories for The Vancouver Sun. I moved the tree around a bit until it came to its final resting spot next to our deck.

The height of the deck puts us into the tree and close to the blooms, which otherwise would not be as easy to see from the ground.

Being evergreen, the tree acts as a privacy screen year round and looks especially beautiful with snow on the branches in winter.

It is supposed to be tender but it has gone through many cold winters here. Vancouver city arborist considered using the tree in parks but was dissuaded by fears of its tenderness and possible maintenance challenges.

There was a similar one at the Pitch and Putt Golf Course in Stanley Park next to the Park Board offices, but I understand it has since died.

UBC Botanical Garden likes to call this tree Magnolia insignis, but I prefer the name Manglietia and I believe it is different having seen both. But, hey, a rose by any other name. 

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