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Magnolia grandiflora 'Brackens Brown Beauty', Brackens Brown Beauty Magnolia

This is probably one of the most cold tolerant of the southern Magnolia cultivars. Southern Magnolia will thrive in a moist organic soil in full sun and hot conditions once established. Southern Magnolia prefers acid soil but will tolerate a slightly basic, even wet or clay soil. Select seedlings grown from trees in alkaline soil for planting in this high pH soils. This cultivar has a coarse root system and is often root pruned more often than other cultivars.

Species occurs throughout north and central Florida south to Desoto County.

The root system is wider spreading than most other trees, extending from the trunk a distance equal to about 4 times the canopy width. This makes it very difficult to save existing Magnolia trees on construction sites, and makes transplanted trees recover slowly. Some nursery growers overcome this by regular root pruning programs and/or digging from a field nursery in mid-summer - this appears to help them recover quicker than those transplanted in the dormant season. Dormant season dug trees that are not root pruned often loose some to many interior leaves and canopies look quite thin for a period of months or a year or two. Field grown trees transplant best if root pruned regularly during the production period.

Tolerance to wet soils appears to be seed source dependent. Some trees die when exposed to sudden wet soil conditions following a heavy rain, others pull through with little apparent damage. I have also seen plants growing well on sandy dunes near the beach. Cultivars could be selected for tolerance to wet soil and drought. Trees tend to have a low failure rate meaning that branches break from these trees less often than from some other trees. This plant is considered mostly allergy free and causes little or no allergy problems in most people.