Saucer Magnolia
Magnolia x soulangeana
The most popular deciduous magnolia, loved for huge, cup-shaped, fragrant pink and white flowers on bare branches in early spring, a beautiful lawn specimen. Give it moist, acid, well-drained soil and a sheltered spot, away from warm south walls that coax buds open early, since late frosts brown the blooms.
- Mature size
- 25 × 25 ft
- 7.5 × 7.5 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 5a–8b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part sun
- Water
- Medium to moist
- Blooms
- Mar–Apr
Saucer Magnolia at its mature size
A mature Saucer Magnolia grows 20 to 30 feet tall and just as wide, taller than most people.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: Missouri Botanical Garden.
Through the year
What Saucer Magnolia looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Dormant · Dec–Mar
Bare: smooth gray branches with large fuzzy flower buds at the tips.
In flower · Apr
Leafless branches covered in large goblet flowers, rose-purple outside and white inside.
In leaf · May–Oct
Large dark green obovate leaves.
Fall · Nov
Dull yellow-brown, muted and patchy.
Photos
Growing Saucer Magnolia
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and California.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Specimen and fragrant
- Leaves
- Drops its leaves in winter
- Native to
- China
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Saucer Magnolia, that’s about 25 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Saucer Magnolia in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.
Other magnolias
Jane Magnolia
Sweetbay Magnolia
Little Gem Magnolia
Saucer MagnoliaAll drawn to the same scale.