Magnolia Soulangeana
Magnolia × soulangeana
Blooms early enough that one frosty night browns the lot — keep it off an east wall where the morning sun catches them.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Sun to light shade; keep it away from east-facing morning sun.
- Watering
- Water young trees through dry spells; mature ones cope well enough.
- Feeding
- An annual compost mulch, with ericaceous feed on alkaline soils.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- February
- Pruning
- Very little — take out dead or crossing branches once flowering is done.
- Mar–Mar Flowering
- Mar–Apr Bud Break
- Apr–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 16 ft 5 in
- In-row spacing
- 16 ft 5 in
- Between rows
- 20 ft 6 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- A fine surface mat, and nothing below it
- Working depth
- 4–12 in
- Can reach
- 18 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 16–25 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 16 in of soil
Hair-fine roots in a shallow felt, with no deep anchor to fall back on. It cannot chase water, so it is the first casualty of a drought and the first thing killed by a hoe. Mulch it, never cultivate around it, and never let it go dry in its first two summers.
Wide, fleshy, rope-like roots close to the surface that break rather than bend and do not regrow readily. A magnolia is planted where it is to stay, in spring, and nothing is ever dug beneath it.
The habit is Magnolia Soulangeana’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Scale insects Immobile brown or white bumps fixed to stems and leaf undersides, sucking sap and weakening growth. Wipe off with a damp cloth or dab with horticultural soap; watch for the sooty mold that follows.
- Coral spot Orange-pink pustules on dead or weakened wood that can spread into live branches. Prune out affected wood to a clean cut, leaving no snags or stubs.
- Frost damage Frost damage to the flowers
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Hoverfly SyrphidaeHunts Scale insects
Bee-mimicking flies whose legless larvae graze aphid colonies clean while the adults pollinate. A ribbon of shallow, nectar-rich flowers kept in bloom all season recruits wave after wave of them.
- Ladybird (lady beetle) CoccinellidaeHunts Scale insects
The gardener’s favorite ally: adults and their alligator-shaped larvae each eat thousands of aphids, plus scale, mealybugs, and other soft-bodied sap-suckers. Grow flat, open flowers for the adults and never spray a colony that ladybird larvae are already working.
Hostas, Ferns, Hellebores, Cyclamen
Green-leaved shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com