We are still a few weeks from fall and still a few months from the ideal time to do shade tree planting in south Louisiana, but we can thinking about some nice native trees to add to our Florida parishes landscapes. A great try to try is the sweet bay magnolia.
Sweet bay magnolias are native to a large portion of the eastern and southeastern United States. They are very common in the coastal regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and are found in association with swamp red maple (Acer) and titi (Cyrilla).These magnolias perform well under a wide range of soil and planting conditions – their native habitat is swamp, bog, pond or sandy stream areas -- but they grow best in fertile, moist, well-drained silty loam soil. A slightly acid soil is preferred.
An upright, columnar type growth habit having a single truck is what you will see with most sweet bay magnolias planted in a commercial landscape setting. But, you will see sweet bay magnolias with multi-trunked shrubby growth forms also. In their native habitat, plant size and growth habit are highly variable. Pruning at a young age can be used to direct shoot growth to the desired form.
Mature trees will average about 30 feet tall with a spread of 20 feet, but larger sizes are common. Most of the time, these trees have a tendency to be semi-evergreen. The further south they are planted, the more likely it is for foliage retention to extend into the winter months. Some improved selections of sweet bay magnolia are close to being evergreen. A nice feature of the sweet bay magnolia is the silvery-gray color on the underside of foliage. Flowers are creamy white and about 2-3 inches in diameter. Flowers are present in April and May and have a lemony fragrance. Fruit is your typical magnolia cone that is yellow-green. It splits open in the late summer through fall to reveal red seeds.
Sweet bay magnolias is being produced more now in wholesale nurseries. Landscapers are using the tree in commercial plantings. Trees are good for wildlife habitat plantings. In the home landscape, they make a great small to medium tree for a woodland edge situation. They work well as an individual specimen tree or in a clustered group of 3-5 trees. Try to select trees for grouped plantings that have similar habits.