White Champaca Michelia x. alba (Magnolia)

White Champaca is a sterile hybrid, grown across South East Asia for its perfume. The flowers are narrow and ivory white, strongly scented, and produced in flushes through the warm months rather than all at once. Because the tree sets no seed there are no pods dropping on paving and no seedlings coming up in the beds, which counts for something on a tree this size planted near an entry. It grows upright and stays reasonably narrow, with glossy mid green evergreen leaves, and thickens into a tall screen with age.

Frost ends it rather than slowing it

This is the limit, and it is not a matter of degree. A young plant caught by a hard frost can be cut to the ground or killed outright, and even an established tree drops leaf and stalls for a season after a cold snap. Treat any site that collects cold air as unsuitable rather than borderline: the bottom of a slope, a flat open paddock, a courtyard sitting below road level. In marginal districts plant against a north facing wall, mulch heavily and protect the tree through its first two winters. Autumn planting in warm districts gives a young tree a full season of root growth before it meets its first cold spell.

Where it does work

Subtropical and warm coastal gardens: Queensland, the northern rivers, the warmer coastal parts of New South Wales and the warm districts of Western Australia, plus sheltered frost free pockets further south. Part shade to full sun both suit it, with more sun giving denser growth and heavier flowering. It wants rich free draining soil, shelter from strong wind and steady water through summer. For a privacy screen, space trees 2.5 to 3 metres apart and let the canopies knit together. Salt laden wind browns the leaf edges, so on an open coastal block put something between it and the water.

Pruning around the cold

Cut after a flush of flower in the warm months, taking whole shoots back to a node to keep the canopy furnished low. Avoid pruning in winter, because the soft growth pushed in response is exactly what the next cold night takes. Lower branches can be lifted for a clear trunk once the screen is working above head height. Feed in spring and again in mid summer with a slow release fertiliser for acid loving plants, keep the mulch topped up over the surface roots, and water through dry spells rather than letting it wilt and then flooding it.

Champaca or coco

Michelia coco is the other perfumed michelia here and the difference is scale. Coco stays a dense rounded shrub, clips into a hedge and puts its evening scent at nose height. White Champaca goes up into a tree and delivers perfume over a screen or across an outdoor room, through the day as well as the evening. Coco takes a clipped face more willingly, while the champaca is happier lightly shaped and left to build. If cold is a genuine concern then neither is the answer, and an evergreen magnolia such as Exmouth is the frost tolerant substitute for the same glossy evergreen screening, without the scent.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 4 sizes, from 400mm up to 200L, priced from $389.00 to $1659.00 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.