Survivor?

It's the foreshortening of this photo that makes its subject look alien. It is in fact nothing more exotic than a magnolia, waiting, I hope, to bloom. Sadly it isn't something my garden has produced itself, but one which has only just been imported from the garden centre. 

My illustrious predecessor Fr Barlow planted the magnolia tree in the front garden back in the early 1970s, a far more welcome addition than the eucalyptus he inflicted on the back, which you may recall had to be felled last year. The magnolia split under the weight of the snow over my first winter in Swanvale Halt, and I've already had one go at replacing it. That sickly sapling struggled for several years against the slugs, as I sought different ways of fending them off. Every leaf it managed to produce ended up munched to a stump - or perhaps it wasn't the slugs, but some distemper in the shrub itself that caused it never to flourish. In the end there was nothing to be done for it. This one is a bit bigger, more advanced, and looks healthier. We will see.