choicest magnolias and how to prune them, with andrew bunting

SO MANY MAGNOLIAS, SO LITTLE SPACE. I sought recommendations from Andrew Bunting, president of Magnolia Society International and Curator of the Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College (with its impressive Magnolia collection of about 130 kinds, including the ones at left, above)—and first, he shared his expertise about their basic care, and especially pruning.basic magnolia care

FULL SUN (or light shade in hotter zones), and well-drained soil that’s high in organic matter is the basic regimen (though the sweetbay magnolia, M. virginiana, can also take a wet spot). Give the others those requirements, plus a light layer of aged organic mulch, and they generally will thrive. Fertilizing isn’t needed, says Andrew. (At Scott they only mulch the circles of trees in lawn areas, using a combination of leaf compost and one-year-old composted wood chips.)

Magnolias are not the easiest to plant under, however, because of their fleshy, moisture-hogging root systems. “Some plants that can take dry shade will make a go of it,” he says, suggesting Epimedium, or Asarum, or Christmas fern. Among bulbs, try Scilla, or Chionodoxa, or even toadlilies (Tricyrtis), he recommends.

Magnolia grandiflora, the so-called Southern magnolia, is the toughest of all to underplant—since it has not just those roots, but also evergreen foliage to limit water that reaches the area underneath.

Though magnolias are generally tough, various species of scale insects can be an occasional pest at the Scott Arboretum, which is just outside Philadelphia (information on the collection, and visiting).

I’d add yellow-bellied sapsuckers as a formidable opponent, and one is on the verge of killing the second of my two big old magnolias, and has offed other ornamental tree

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