Magnolias

Forty-four listings sit behind this page, and three quite different plants share the name Magnolia across them. The grid mixes all three, so start by telling them apart.

Twenty-three listings are evergreen and twenty-one deciduous. Five cultivars appear twice, grown by different farms with different size runs behind them: Little Gem, Teddy Bear, Kay Parris, Black Tulip and Vulcan. One Little Gem listing holds two container sizes; the other runs from a 140mm pot up to 1000L. Open both before ordering a run.

The evergreen grandifloras and the narrow selections

Fifteen listings are Magnolia grandiflora selections. The guide works through Little Gem, Teddy Bear, Kay Parris, Alta, Coolwyn Gloss and Exmouth; the rest of the shelf holds the screening forms. Sweet and Neat keeps a column furnished right to the base. Sweet Spire does the same in a narrow side passage. Super Gem is shorter jointed than Little Gem and keeps density lower down, which is the argument for a pleached panel. Sweet Carolina and Greenback knit into a solid face instead of drifting open the way a seedling grandiflora will. The straight species is here in one container size, the only unselected tree in the group.

Sorting the twenty-one deciduous listings

Width sorts them first. Magnolia x soulangeana and Lennei Alba build as wide as they build tall and want an open lawn. Genie, Burgundy Star and Inspiration stay upright and narrow enough for a courtyard or a driveway edge. Felix carries flowers among the largest of any magnolia here, which is also why wind ruins them.

Timing sorts them second. The yellow flowered types open later than the purples, which usually carries Butterflies and Sundance past the worst of a frost run. Magnolia Susan was bred to hold its buds back for the same reason and stays a rounded multi stemmed shrub. San Jose is among the earliest saucers to break, so in a frost district keep that one off a wall catching hard morning sun.

Vulcan and Black Tulip each carry a second listing for grafted stock. Magnolia Vulcan Grafted flowers young and comes true to type, which matters on a cultivar bought for one colour. Do not judge it on the first flowering though: a young plant or a warm humid season opens it far lighter than the ruby expected.

Where the size ladder starts

Twelve listings start at a 300mm pot, roughly fifteen litres of root ball, and ten at a 200mm. Two start at 5L, a Little Gem line and White Caviar; three go smaller again, at 140mm and 125mm. Growth is slow to moderate across the range, so the grade you buy is close to what you live with for years.

Eleven of the deciduous listings offer a bare root grade lifted over winter, and on all eleven it is the top of the run, not the bottom. Nothing evergreen is sold that way. Read the guide before ordering one.

Buyers who belong on another page

Perfume in a cold district is the common mismatch. Michelia Coco, Champaca and White Champaca all carry the scent people come looking for, and all three are subtropical to warm temperate. Frost takes the buds before they open, and a hard one can kill a young White Champaca outright. Port Wine Magnolia takes cold better and comes down to a 125mm pot, which is where a long hedge run starts. Fairy White handles cooler southern gardens, from advanced stock only. Sweet Michelia is the tree sized member of that group, common along Melbourne and Sydney boundary lines.

The second mismatch is Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. Deciduous magnolias want a real winter and flower thinly without one. Star Wars is the usual exception, holding up in milder coastal gardens where the pure campbellii types disappoint. It is vigorous though, and a narrow bed will not hold it.