Dear editorial staff of Trucioli.it. In January 2022 we sent you the following note to denounce the drastic and harmful pruning of the centuries-old magnolias in the park of Villa delle Magnolie in Sanremo.
by Massimo Conio and Rinaldo Sartore
More than pruning, it was a real mutilation, or pollarding carried out in September, out of season for Magnolias.
Today we show you photos of some of those Magnolias that they failed to overcome the above amputations and died. The survivors have forever lost their naturally majestic form. The Sanremo Forestry Unit Carabinieri Command has confirmed to us that the relevant legal action is underway against the material executors of that horrendous crime, for which they cannot make any statement.
We wonder if the investigators, during the trial, will be informed that, in addition to the irreparable damage inflicted on the surviving magnolias, two specimens have died and must be replaced.
We attach two images.
Magnolia grandiflora is native to a wide area ranging from the central-northern United States to Japan, Korea, China and India up to the roots of Tibet. It is a tree that can reach i 25-30 meters high, centuries-old, evergreen, with leathery and persistent leaves. At the beginning of spring it is covered with large cream-white flowers with 8 –9 scented petals. His name, also in the Latin classification “magnolia” drifts
by the well-known French doctor and botanist Pierre Magnol who introduced it to the botanical garden of Montpellier, France, which he directed, shortly before his death in 1715 in Montpellier, his hometown. They are part of the Magnoliaceae family,
Magnolia genus, over 300 species.
Like all ornamental trees, i.e. not cultivated for the production of fruit, magnolias they don’t need to be pruned at all. This thesis is confirmed by billions of trees, of all kinds, that grow majestically in forests and in some gardens around the world. Nonetheless, some “gardeners” behave like lumberjacks and, armed with deadly chainsaws, carry out actual, yet harmful, amputations. This was the case of the centuries-old Magnolias in the park of the same name Villa of the Magnolias in Sanremo, where last September, unknown chainsaw enthusiasts gave vent to their love for ugliness and perhaps their frustrations, carrying out an unprecedented massacre.
We add that the right period to do pruning, if you really want to do it, is from the end of winter to the end of flowering; pruning in September during the vegetative period, as has been done, is equivalent to amputating the limbs without anesthesia or stitches! To mitigate the suffering of seeing those poor stumps, it was the intervention of Sanremo Forestry Unit Carabinieri Command which they have communicated the news of crime to the Judicial Authority for damage and disturbance of public goods. We are certain that the condemnation, for the material executors and the principal, or principals, will be proportionate to the enormous damage; incalculable damage as most of those Magnolias, unable to return to their natural and harmonious shape, would have to be replaced.
CONIO Dr. Massimo – SARTORE Rinaldo
