Magnolia Cameo

Cameo is a deciduous magnolia that flowers on bare wood in late winter and early spring, before a leaf appears, in soft pale tones rather than the pinks and purples most people picture. The colour is quiet, which cuts both ways: it vanishes against a rendered wall or a light coloured fence and reads beautifully against a dark hedge, brickwork or a stand of evergreens. After flowering the tree leafs up into a clean green canopy for summer and drops it again in autumn, so plan the backdrop before you plan the position.

Bare root stock has to go straight in

Cameo is offered lifted bare root over winter as well as potted, and that is where it usually goes wrong. Magnolia roots are fleshy and brittle rather than fibrous, and they will not tolerate drying out or sitting in a bag in a shed for a fortnight. A plant whose roots have dried leafs out weakly in its first spring, then stalls, and frequently fails to come away at all the following year. Have the hole dug before the plant arrives, keep the roots covered and damp from the moment you unwrap them, spread them out sideways instead of folding them into a narrow hole, and water in the same day. Potted stock is more forgiving, though not indefinitely.

Depth, soil and climate

Set the top of the root ball level with or slightly above the surrounding soil. Planted deep, or with mulch heaped against the trunk, magnolias rot at the collar and sulk for a year or two before going backwards for good. Soil should be free draining and on the acid side, improved with compost across a wide area, then mulched rather than dug. Full sun to part shade, with morning sun and shelter from the hot westerly, keeps the pale flowers clean and stops the summer leaves scorching. Deciduous magnolias need a real winter to flower properly, which puts this one at home in temperate southern and highland gardens and makes it harder work where winter chill is short.

Cutting costs you the next season

Flower buds for the following spring form through summer, so anything beyond the lightest tidy up in the weeks after flowering removes the display before it happens. Keep it to dead, damaged or crossing wood and leave the shape alone. Feed once as the buds swell and again after flowering with a complete slow release fertiliser for acid loving plants, watered in well. An annual mulch of composted leaf litter does more for this tree than heavy feeding, and it beats cultivating the bed underneath.

Cameo or one of the coloured types

Cleopatra sits at the opposite end of the range, deep pink to wine purple, and carries from the far end of a garden where Cameo asks to be seen close up or given a dark background. Magnolia x soulangeana is the broad multi stemmed shrub or low tree, frequently as wide as it is tall, and it needs an open lawn to look right. Cameo is carried in a short run of sizes among the deciduous advanced trees here, including bare root grades lifted for winter planting.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 300mm up to Bare Root Advanced, priced from $71.95 to $149.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. Every size here is established stock rather than a starter plant, so this line is intended for immediate effect rather than for growing on. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to choosing a magnolia.