@snowy You know I'm not too sure I thought is was either Chinise or Japanese, tried to google it but couldn't come up anything that resembles these buds.
Hi Bruni, I am pretty sure that they are Magnolia as Snowy suggests, we have one very similar in our garden, but as I said it has almost finished flowering now. I love the way the flowers came before the leaves and then the leaves on ours are enormous and make quite a statement in the garden. I don't know what variety it is though as it was in the garden when we moved here!
