The Evergreen Magnolia “Little Gem” grows 15-20 feet tall and 7-10 feet wide. (Photo by Ginny Rosenkranz)
The Evergreen Magnolia is a wonderful tree for all seasons!
It blooms in the spring with fragrant, creamy 8-12 inch white flowers and often continues to bloom through the summer.
It has decorative cone-like pods that release rosy-red coated seeds that are suspended on slender threads in the late fall.
It can grow 60-80 feet tall and 20-40 feet wide which is sometimes a bit too large for a small landscape or a single-story home.
Luckily, there is a smaller version called “Little Gem” that only grows 15-20 feet tall and 7-10 feet wide.
This smaller version Magnolia has glossy dark evergreen leaves that grow 5 inches long and are bronze-copper on the underside.
The sweet citrusy fragrance of the six-petal flowers are 4 inches across, and they begin to bloom on very young plants, blooming from spring into the late autumn.
The flowers can be trimmed off the tree and set in a bowl of water to perfume any room in the house.
The seed pods are also smaller, growing only 3 inches long, and the rosy red coated seeds are also a bit smaller than the larger version.
These beautiful small magnolias thrive in full sun and are cold tolerant in USDA zones 7-9 and are slightly salt tolerant.
They thrive in many different soil types as long as they can be moist but well drained.
An interesting fact is that the magnolias were on earth before bees were, and the thick waxy leaves of the magnolias were designed to accommodate beetles for pollination.
Songbirds love to feast on the rosy, red fruit in the fall along with small mammals.
Birds love the dense foliage to hide their nests from predators, and as the leaves are evergreen, they can act as a year-round screen and a safe haven from winter winds.
(Editor’s note: Ginny Rosenkranz is a commercial horticulture specialist with the University of Maryland Extension.)
