Sherry:

In addition to photos of your beautiful magnolias, you are sharing stories about your life, decisions made and why, about trees and beloved dogs. Your land is lovely - with the hollow and hills, you can plant trees with different needs - like the Nyssa aquatica in the hollow, and the Magnolias on the hill above. Except for the hills, your land looks like the forest next to us - maples, oaks, sweetgum, hollies, and tall skinny magnolias growing where pines used to dominate.

Today, my husband and I were driving to the store, and I showed him magnolias growing in the woods. He asked, "Will we have magnolias?" I said, "Absolutely! Those magnolias growing in the woods show us that magnolias will be happy on our land."

Greenfreak, thanks for suggesting this. I don't have many trees now - a few pines, hollies, and sweet gums that survived Hurricane Isabel. I don't have photos to share. When I see Sherry's photos, they show me what our land will look like in time. Sooner than we think!

I hope others will share their trees too - they inspire us.
Pam

Thanks, Pam!
Sherry

I do love magnolias, its one of my favorite tree groups of all time. You are lucky to have some growing wild, thanks for sharing.

You're welcome, fledgeling!
I've also got lots of naturally growing m. virginianas/sweetbay mags, four m. macrophyllas/big leaf mags and one m. pyramidata/pyramid mag. I'm hoping my m. pyramidata will bloom for the first time this year - my big leaf mags started blooming two years ago. If they do, I'll sure add pictures to this thread.
Sherry

Sherry, do your bigleafs ever produce any seed?

Sherry, I believe Alabama has an idea ...

Question: Do all magnolias, including the bigleaf, Ashe, and mag grand, come true from seed? (excluding the hybrids)

I love growing from seed. That was always my main way to grow new plants. But trees take so much longer - this is one situation when it's good to be 28.

Pam

I think they do come true from seed, Pam. There was a nurseryman in Hattiesburg who used to grow big leafs from seed he got from wild ones.
Alabama, even though mine have been blooming for two years now, they haven't set any seed. They're not that old, though, so I'm thinking they may start doing so in the next few years. I bought my trees at nurseries, and they're the type with purple at the throat of the flowers. The local types have pure white flowers, so I'd like to grow some of those from seed, but I keep forgetting to look for seeds at the right time of year. A good many of them grow near Black Creek near here, but they don't flower as much or make as many seeds as mag grands, so you have to go at the right time of the year and be lucky enough to find a seed cone down low enough you can reach it. Hopefully, I'll remember this year, but if I don't, Louisiana Nursery in Opelousas offers some pure white ones from Mississippi - their prices are HIGH!! I got my pyramid mags via mail-order - I've got one in a container to plant in the fall - but they're locally native, too, I've found them growing in the wild. As a matter of fact, I found some growing close to the real big, champion mag grand in Benndale.
If mine set any seeds this year, Alabama, I'll let you know.
Sherry

Bigleaf Magnolias flower and make seed at around 12 to 15 years old. We have some wild Bigleaf Magnolia around here and I've seen baby ones only a few inches tall that sprouted from seeds. They are a interesting tree.

Deer seem to love rubbing their antlers on my small 5' tall magnolias. They've really hurt them.

Speaking of growing trees from seed, I have a question about chicken manure and I know who can answer it.

Sherry, I was able to get the local TruValue hardware store to order Black Hen composted chicken manure. I have a couple of questions. You've mentioned mixing it with potting soil when you put seedlings and young trees in pots. I usually use Pro-Mix as a potting soil but it's lightweight, dries out fast, and is probably better for propagating flowers and vegetables from seed than growing trees.

Questions:

* How much chicken manure do you add to potting soil?

* Do you have recommendations for potting soil?

* When you plant trees out, do you add chicken manure to the soil?

Pam, you asked -
"How much chicken manure do you add to potting soil?"
When I mix potting soil with chicken manure, I usually do so in a big bucket. I'll take about 6 - 9 hands full of potting soil then add 1 handful of the manure, mix that and repeat the process. Of course, you don't have to do it with your hands - you could use, say, 7 cups of potting soil to 1 cups of manure, or whatever, and the ratio would be the same.
"Do you have recommendatios for potting soil?"
I use Expert Pro-Mix from Walmart, unless I'm buying in in the late fall or early winter when they don't have it - then I use Baccto from the farm store. Either of these is heavier and hold water longer than the REAL cheap stuff, that is, the stuff that costs about $1.00 a bag, but is nothing but bark and sand. I like to save money and buy the big bag of Pro-Mix, but it's so cumbersome and heavy I usally wind up buying the $3.50 (about) size.
"When you plant trees out, do you add chicken manure to the soil?"
Yes, I add it at about the same 1:7 ratio as I do when I plant the trees up in pots.
I get much faster growth from my trees when I add chicken manure than when I just use the potting soil. I have to check the roots often to make sure they're not getting too thick. Once I find a lot of roots touching the end of the pot, I repot the tree to a bigger one - I sure don't want the roots to start circling the pot like the roots of so many nursery plants! Once I plant them out, they continue to grow faster than they do without the manure, but usually not as fast as they did in the pot. You'll find an abundance of earthworms in the soil where you've added the manure, so it may be that the aeration and fertilization (with their dead bodies) that they provide is more helpful than the added N-P-K plus other nutrients that they get from the manure itself. My soil is heavy, so aeration has got to be good.
Sherry

Sherry: Thanks so much. This information is very helpful and timely.

After seeing your photos of emerging oak seedlings, I decided to check my acorn pots. Nothing happening on top but I could see and feel roots in the bottoms of some pots - and these are 3 gallon pots. I was amazed! I'll check the rest tomorrow.

The best potting mix I have found so far is Miracle Gro "Moisture Control plus". It really does hold moisture, even outside.

Pam, I was just out in the garage, moving my oak seedlings to my garden, and I noticed that the Walmart potting soil is called Perfect Mix, not Pro Mix. It probably doesn't matter much, though, since, other than the sand and bark mixes, they're all about the same.
Sherry

On the north campus of the University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia, I was awe struck, in 1960, to see Magnolia trees so large it took three people hand to hand to measure around the trunk of the the tree; beautiful flowers larger than your hand. What would you guess as to age of that tree?

I don't know. Did it look something like this one? That's my husband standing close to the Benndale mag grand.
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Sherry

One that size would be about 17 feet around or about 5.5 feet in diameter in 1960. Based on the average growth rate of Southern magnolias it would have been between 150 to 230 yrs old in 1960. Now in 2008 it would be between 198 to 278 yrs old. After I calculated that, I looked up what year UGA was established and it was in 1785. So if it was planted in 1785 it would be 223 years old in 2008 this year, right in the middle of the range I calculated (198 to 278 yrs old).

These pictures were taken after Hurricane Katrina, with no clean-up done and hardly any top left on the big tree - it used to have a massive canopy. I plan to go visit it again soon to see how much has grown back. This tree used to be the national champion, only replaced by another MS mag grand that I think is two trees fused together.
Sherry

To be clear, what I typed above was a follow-up on stalks_05 question. :-)

It's interesting how often big specimens of trees (of no particular kind) are found in a setting of much smaller trees. The redwood grove effect seems much less usual.

Bboy - there used to be huge swamp chestnut and bluff oaks, loblolly pines and others close to the big mag grand in the picture. They were all on the ground after the hurricane. It sits at the bottom of a hollow - big trees in hollows and other low areas had the lowest survival rate for big trees of any, I suppose because not only did they experience the winds, but the soil their roots were in was so totally saturated they were less stable than big trees on high land. And they were subjected to rushing water. This is one of the reasons I keep praising mag grands - mag grands, live oaks and long leaf pines are the most hurricane-proof trees.
Sherry

Hmm, on the website below it lists Swamp Chestnut (cow oak) as being a survivor tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Louisiana landscape

I don't think they got that list exactly right, Alabama - it was probably written by bureaucrats who stay in an office most of the time. They listed "pines" as being weak wooded - that was true for my loblolly pines, but my long-leaf pines have all stood, even the biggest ones. Of course, all my longleafs grow on high ground, and that's undoubtedly an advantage. Cow oak/q. michauxii might be a good one, too, when it grows on higher ground, I don't know, but I know that the ones that used to be around the big mag grand are gone - only the mag grand is standing.
Sherry

Yeah, I think it's all in the roots. A high water table encourages shallow rooting. Maybe mine will be deeper rooted since it gets droughty here sometimes.

Hi,

Is Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana var. virginiana) self-fertile; or are two required for fruits/berries?

Thanks,
Steve

Steve, magnolia virginiana flowers are perfect, that is, they have both male and female parts and don't need another tree to make fruits/berries. I dug up a little one in the woods about 30 or more years ago, planted it in my mother's suburban yard with typical crepe myrtles and such, and it blooms and makes load of fruit each year without another one being anywhere near it.
I deleted many of my pictures on Photobucket, so I'll post this recent picture of a mag grand flower on the fat tree next to my front porch - it's been flowering like crazy all spring!
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Sherry

Sherry: This is a lovely photo. The light reflecting from the leaves below the bloom sets it off. You have a talent for nature photography.

I have a question about your photographs. Before I post photos on Photobucket, I open them in an image program, reduce the image size to 400 x 600 or maybe 600 x 800, and reduce the resolution to 72 dpi. I often use the "save for the web" option so the images will load faster. I think this is a mistake - especially reducing the resolution because I lose too much detail.

What settings do you use to make your photos so eye-catching? Do you edit photos before you post them?

I really appreciate your advice on this.

Pam, I can only describe the process I go through after I've snapped pictures. First I download the pictures onto the software that came with the camera, which I loaded onto my computer when I got it. My camera is a Cannon PowerShot SD1000 Digital Elph, a real small camera that fits easily into my pocket. Then I edit the pictures - I can increase the sharpness, increase or decrease the brightness, color saturation, and contrast, and I can trim the picture to a smaller size and add text, as in giving the picture a name. I get Photobucket to make my pictures the size, whatever that is, that's recommended for message boards, which is basically what this forum is, I think. I don't edit my pictures on Photobucket. I've never heard of "save for the web" but then there's a lot of info on the Photobucket site that I've never read. Photobucket gives a pretty easy URL - I guess that's what you call it - to use to imbed your pictures, and that's what I usually use. I probably should use the clickable thumb nail URL, but that's so long to type up! I'm not at all computer savvy, just try to put one foot in front of the other, so to speak. :)
I don't think you should use an image program - Photobucket will do those things for you.
Sherry

Thank you, thank you! I use a Canon 20D (single lens reflex) and we have an older Nikon Coolpix. The Canon allows us to take incredible photos but the image sizes are huge (4 mgs or more) - great if you want to make art or wall posters. So I shrink them to small manageable sizes.

I'll take your advice and see what Photobucket will do. It will save a great deal of time if I don't have to move images into Photoshop to edit, then upload them to Photobucket.

Pam

Had a chance to look for that massive southern mag again?

No, actually, I'd forgotten all about it, but now that hunting season is over, I guess it'd be safe to check on it and see how much the branches have regrown. If I can afford the gas over there, that is!
Sherry