hi one indication that what you read is NOT correct.. might be the fact that no local nursery carries them ... dont you think ... not much help??? ... lol ... southern mail order suppliers make all kinds of ALLEGED zone claims .... that may or not hold true in the great white north ... there is THEORY.. and then there is reality ... in reality .. it will .. most likely ... all depend on your little micro climate ... and it seems you know this.. when you say you want to 'TRY' .... have you ever seen one locally???? you might try contacting The Chicago Botanic Garden and seeing what their thoughts are in this regard .... i am also aware that Hidden Lakes Gardens in Tipton MI [just SW of ann arbor] has a magnolia collection .... see link .... you might want to contact them as they should be close in zone to you ... and see if they have any southern magnolia .... good luck ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

I have grown Magnolia grandiflora "Edith Bogue" successfully in Guelph Ontario for 3 years. Planted outdoors in moist clay loam , slightly above grade and acidified by pine bark, peat moss, humus mix as top dressing . Watered regularly in winter thaws with luke warm water to keep surface roots drawing moisture for leaves ( to mitigate wind desiccation/ winter sunburn ) Flowered 3rd year after planting. Now 9ft high ( 8-12 inches /year) . Growing well this spring (2014) after extraordinarily cold winter down to negative 34C for several nights in January/February. Some leaf dessication this year (first time since planted, probably because of very cold winter)) and 25% leaf burn from spring sun (possibly due to late soil thaw this year as sun got stronger), but these leaves will drop anyway as a matter of course to be replaced by new leaves by June 1. New leaf buds already swelling. Also successfully growing Magnolia asheii, Magnolia virginiana "Porcelain Dove ( amazing plant), 2 hardy crape myrtles, 5 hardy camellias, stewartia and franklinia alamataha amongst other rare/ endangered / and zone pushers. All doing well.

some lady from a garden center is to come look at the dead river birch that shouldn't have died in 3 weeks, too bad yesterday it was trashed, it had no roots..she was to come 2 days back and didn't, I dont hold breath.. ISsue with magnolia, I had the soil too boggy, the issue is sometime more recently she started losing all her bright right top feeder roots, lower down, they are not white, perhaps they aren't meant to be.. I planted her shallowly as the nursery had her, but even now I see 99% of time, what's in a pot is still too deep..the base, I'm trying to realize the "flare" is a big different... I'm just watching... it's one of my last trees, ya know...I would buy small but have had too much bad luck online places (plus shipping).. but now due to difficulty with strength .. they don't like to sell small.. I don't have the money Ken, I'm obsessed as it's my outlet for dealing with the rest of my out-of-control.. and I used to have a gorgeous yard... and i'm an outside freak, can't be in... always was like that..I've been careless, too much, thinking.. not thinking clearly.. Sorry if I wasn't clear, but all your answers helped a lot, thanks for taking the time..you are very kind! Oh, everyone tells me magnolias don't like clay...but oh well, I can't move another thing to a pot... I've no ... I hate life sometimes, it comes at you and never seems to give you a break.. I guess I deal with "stress" through the garden, until I can't anymore... I love the garden, just...wish I had ...a brain.. THanks again,amy

Hi C.Bird, I think that kind of spot can be challenging--having a vertical to the south so that a plant rather abruptly starts getting full sun from early May to early August. I guess that period is just too much for the more delicate maples. There are some smaller maples that might hold up better in the sun, are slow-growing and are definitely specimen-quality. Acer griseum (Paperbark) is one, along with the other trifoliate Asian maples. Paulino's early in the season had a couple of attractive Three-flower Maples (A. triflorum) but they were a bit on the expensive side. I think those were around four or five feet tall. I was there a few days ago and saw that they are giving a 20% discount on trees, but sometimes the Paulino's plants are marked off much more on an individual basis. A six to eight foot maximum is pretty small for a "tree." It makes me start to think of the plants that are sometimes described as "large shrub or small tree," but even then, large shrubs easily surpass eight feet. One tree in that category, oddly enough, is that Sea-Buckthorn, which has a lot of good attributes. It's been described as exactly that, a large shrub/small tree. The male trees supposedly have a more tree-like habit, the females shrubbier. It's said to grow to 8 to 30 ft. tall--quite a range! Things in Colorado usually seem to grow at the low end of projected size ranges. Another one that I thought of is Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus). It is a slow grower, and has a lot of other positive aspects also. There seems to be quite a lot of variety in habit with this one, often evident when the plants are only a few feet high. Tagawa had at least a couple of them in May, but I haven't been back there yet. As I recall, the Tagawa plants seemed to be developing along multi-stem lines, but they would probably accept some shaping. It's not a plant I've seen for sale elsewhere in the region. With those, you could see the plant's habit before buying, rather than taking a chance with a mail order. Parrotia is also a very nice smallish specimen tree. If you got one around three or four feet tall, it might not outgrow your limit in ten years. (BTW, what happens when/if it gets to eight feet?). If you would entertain a conifer, Sciadopitys (Japanese Umbrella Pine) is a classic slow grower and a very interesting plant. Well, there are a few more coming to mind but I don't want to write forever. An equally good bet to find something suitable would be by searching for drawfish cultivars of trees that ordinarily grow much larger. As an example, I saw a photo of a Sweetgum 'Gumball' a few days ago (maybe on the Trees Forum) and found it intriguing. It's far smaller than the species, but I don't know offhand if it'll stay under eight feet. If it did, it might work...certainly it fits my definition of a specimen tree. Two places to search for cultivars are Dirr's Manual of Woody Landscape Plants (DBG library has a copy) and the Forest Farm website. Drop me a line at DallasJoao@aol.com, as I have some other info you might be interested in. Cacau