Evergreen Magnolia Magnolia grandiflora Coolwyn Gloss

Coolwyn Gloss earns the name on the leaf: broad, hard and high gloss dark green, held on a dense frame that stays furnished right to the ground. A row of it reads as a solid wall of foliage rather than a line of trees on clear trunks, which is why it usually gets bought to block a neighbouring second storey, and not as a single specimen. Large cream white cups with a heavy lemon scent open a few at a time across the warm months.

Do not plant it on the fence line

The low skirt is the entire product, and the usual way to lose it is planting too close to the boundary. Set the line at least 1.5 metres off the palings and space plants 2 to 2.5 metres apart. Planted tight, the back of each plant is shaded and goes bare, the front gets sheared flat every time someone trims along the fence, and within a few years you have paid for a dense screening magnolia and are looking at a hedge on legs with a gap underneath. There is no fixing it afterwards, because evergreen magnolias do not reshoot willingly from old wood.

Drainage and aspect

Full sun or part shade both hold the gloss, though flowering is heavier in sun. Depth and drainage matter more than either. On heavy clay that stays saturated after rain, plant high on a built up mound, send downpipes and surface run off somewhere else, and mulch wide instead of digging a deep hole that turns into a sump. Improve the soil with compost across the full planting line. Plant in autumn or early spring, with steady moderate water through the first two summers, not light daily sprinkles.

Training flat and living with the litter

It pleaches and espaliers willingly if you start young, tying the framework in while the wood still bends and cutting whole shoots back to a junction rather than shearing across the face. Prune once the main flush of flower has finished, or in late winter in cooler districts. Feed in early spring and again in summer with a complete slow release fertiliser for acid loving plants. The fallen leaves are leathery and slow to break down, and they come down through the whole year, not in one autumn drop, so keep the line well clear of pool edges and gutters and plan on raking.

Choosing between the screening selections

Alta carries similar foliage on a narrow column and belongs in the tight strips and driveways where this one would never fit. Teddy Bear is the compact option for a courtyard or a single storey boundary, denser and slower, while Coolwyn Gloss keeps climbing to cover a two storey outlook and asks for width in return. The larger selections are grown on as advanced trees, so the order of questions is width first, then the height that has to be covered, then how soon the screen has to close.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 7 sizes, from 300mm up to 200L, priced from $149.00 to $2089.00 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.