Evergreen Magnolia Magnolia grandiflora Exmouth

Turn a leaf over and you have the reason Exmouth gets specified: a thick rust brown felt on the underside sitting against a heavy, glossy, deep green upper face, so the whole tree changes colour whenever wind moves through it. This is one of the older English selections of the evergreen magnolia, upright and more vigorous than the dwarf types, and it comes into flower at a younger age than an unnamed seedling grandiflora usually will. Left alone it grows on into a substantial tree with a wide skirt.

The failure here is arithmetic

Almost every unhappy Exmouth was planted where a small tree belonged: tight against a house, over a driveway, three metres off a fence. The tree does what it was always going to do, someone cuts it back hard to hold it in place, and evergreen magnolias do not hide big cuts. What you get is stubs, a lopsided crown and a tree that is fought every year for the rest of its life. Allow the footprint at planting or choose a dwarf selection instead. For an avenue, work on 6 to 8 metres between trunks; for a pleached or clipped line trained along a wall, 3 to 4 metres, with the framework tied in from the first season.

Ground and water

Deep soil that drains, improved with compost well beyond the planting hole, in full sun to part shade. It takes coastal wind, urban heat and frost once established. Growth is slow to moderate through the early years and lengthens as the root plate spreads, so water deeply in dry spells for the first few years rather than lightly and often, and mulch as wide as you can manage. Keep it back from paving and pool edges, because the leathery leaves shed all year and are slow to break down.

Decide the skirt early

Lower limbs can be left to the ground for screening or lifted to show the trunk, but the decision has to be made while the tree is young: a mature magnolia will not regrow a skirt once it has been taken off. Prune in late winter to early spring before the flush, removing whole branches at the collar rather than shortening them back into leafy wood. Feed in early spring and again after flowering with a controlled release fertiliser formulated for acid loving plants.

When a smaller selection is the better answer

Little Gem gives much the same look at a fraction of the size and is the sensible pick on a suburban block, in a hedge or against a wall. Alta covers the narrow driveway or side setback where width is the constraint. Exmouth is for the site that can let a full sized magnolia do what it wants, and for anyone who specifically wants that two toned leaf at scale. It runs up through the grades into mature trees, so an established specimen can go straight in rather than being grown on from a small pot, which matters on a plant that will not be hurried.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 12 sizes, from 200mm up to 1000L, priced from $52.95 to $14969.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to choosing a magnolia.