Michelia champaca var. alba

[bubba]

A sweet smelling tree:

[tropicbreeze]

This is now Magnolia champaca var alba, or Magnolia x alba. Apparently they can get up to around 50 metres tall. Mine is only about 7 metres.

They became quite popular a number of years ago and there was a lot of hype about the fragrance of the flowers. Don't hear so much about it these days.

Being a hybrid they don't produce seed, they're propagated by marcotting.

[The Silent Seed]

Hey

I'm curious to hear about your experiences with these. Somebody gave me a very old tree (in a pot) and it's very happy in my plant house. The trunk is about 3 inches in diameter, but it's quite old. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to encourage flowering? The lady who gave it to me said it hadn't flowered for her. (She didn't know if it was alba or not - I'm guessing not.) She's had it for about 30 years. 

Can cuttings be propagated? If so; how? A young-ish stem broke off, and I put it in water - no luck. 

Thank you in advance. Jude 

[Silas_Sancona]

11 hours ago, The Silent Seed said:

Hey

I'm curious to hear about your experiences with these. Somebody gave me a very old tree (in a pot) and it's very happy in my plant house. The trunk is about 3 inches in diameter, but it's quite old. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to encourage flowering? The lady who gave it to me said it hadn't flowered for her. (She didn't know if it was alba or not - I'm guessing not.) She's had it for about 30 years. 

Can cuttings be propagated? If so; how? A young-ish stem broke off, and I put it in water - no luck. 

Thank you in advance. Jude 

It might be your growing conditions.. I know they want lots of sun to flower..  Used to be a place ( back in Nor. Cal ) that sold them. anything over 5 gal sized were almost always full of flowers when i'd stop in to look over the nursery's Orchid selections..  Tough time finding a balance between too much and just the right amount of sun in Calif. though since really dry air can do alot of damage to the foliage. 
Have heard of manually removing a certain amount of the foliage at various times during the year to help stimulate flowering / heavier flowering cycles.. Is a practice supposedly used by those who cultivate themin Asia for Tea scenting.

[tropicbreeze]

Mine only spent a short time in a pot and then went into the ground. While it was small it was almost constantly in flower. In the ground and as it grew taller the flowering was irregular. A lot of rain after a dry period seems to trigger flowering but I've never paid any particular attention to it. There could be other factors.

Don't know about growing from cuttings, any information I got insisted marcotting was the only way. Cuttings were never mentioned, neither positively nor negatively. Always worth a try though but use one of those commonly available rooting hormones rather than just putting it in water.

 

[The Silent Seed]

Thank you guys for your input! 

I wouldn't have expected it to flower so soon after receiving it. I got it late in the fall. It responded by dropping a lot of leaves, but now has started to stabilize and to grow. (She brought it over in a trash bag with almost no soil, given its' size, so I repotted it and everything.) I put it into a pot that is approx 2 feet wide. Being inside, it is not getting much natural sunlight. 

At this point, I'm happy that I was able to give it a good home, and that it is doing well, and will look for it to flower when I put it outside in the spring, as you mention them preferring a lot of sun for flowering, thank you! 

[daxin]

Magnolia X alba blooms on new growths and needs lots of fertilizer to push both large leaves and numerous flowers. One recipe I got from a commercial grower is to mix 4 tablespoons of fish emulsion and 1 tablespoon of 20-20-20 dissolvable into 5 gallons of water, use that solution directly to water during the growing season. To avoid salt buildup, irrigate/flush with regular water once after three times of the previous solution. With this recipe, a 5g plant can pump out over 300 flowers in a season

[tropicbreeze]

13 hours ago, daxin said:

Magnolia X alba blooms on new growths and needs lots of fertilizer to push both large leaves and numerous flowers. One recipe I got from a commercial grower is to mix 4 tablespoons of fish emulsion and 1 tablespoon of 20-20-20 dissolvable into 5 gallons of water, use that solution directly to water during the growing season. To avoid salt buildup, irrigate/flush with regular water once after three times of the previous solution. With this recipe, a 5g plant can pump out over 300 flowers in a season

I'll give it a go and see what happens. Seeing it's a reasonably sized tree and surrounded by other trees it might need a large quantity of fertiliser to work.

[daxin]

Since your tree is already in ground, you probably can just go with steer/chicken manure and bone meal. Treat your alba like a citrus and It will pump out waves of flowers. The previous recipe was for container plants and was meant to push growth and blooming for a better looking product. For a garden tree, this recipe might be unnecessary or even undesirable since too many flowers can be overpowering and too much vigor will make the flowers grow out of reach. Magnolia x alba takes pruning very well so head back often if one needs to control its size. Cuttings can work with high heat/high humidity and high concentrations of rooting hormone. Most common propagation method is to graft onto M. champaca root stocks