This magnolia is a little different. Because of the big leaves it is not often found in garden centers. CM just carries the Magnolia virginiana. Check out the pix Here is a link that might be useful: Picture of Magnolia Macrophylla

Hey, somewherentx, where in Texas are you??? How far are you from Copper Canyon???

Those quantities would be per each watering. At first, use the finger method daily -early in the mornings- to determine if you need to water. Insert a finger into the soil to a depth of 4 inches (10.2 cm) approx and see how the soil feels. If it is dry or almost dry, water the shrub and make a note on a wall calendar saying that you watered on that day. After checking daily for 2-3 weeks, review the information on the calendar. Determine about how often you had to water: for example, once every 3/4/5/etc days. Then set the sprinkler or drip irrigation to water the plant (1.5 gallons) on the same frequency (every 3/4/5/days). But if the weather changes and the temperatures depart from the usual and stay much higher/lower, you can use the finger method for another 2-3 weeks to see if you need to tweak things and water every 5/6/7 days instead. I normally give my hydrangeas 1 gallon of water per watering in Spring, Fall and Winter. During the summer, I increase that to 1.5 gallons. If the winter is not mild (that is,m it is cold, snowy, icy) then I try to water them only once every two weeks. Larger hydrangeas will need more water than that. Note: if you notice that the edges of the leaves are browning inwards, the plant needs more water. If you notice that the leaves are drooping/wilting, they should recover on their own by morning if the soil is moist. When I see an extreme wilting episode, I use the finger method and immediately water if the soil is almost dry or dry. If the leaves remain limp 24/7, the plant roots probably have caught root rot. It happened to me once with Alice, a large oakleaf hydrangea. I too enjoy the look of the oakleaf hydrangea leaves in the fall. They are very nice indeed and I have been trying to add more plants with nice fall foliage. By the way, I looked up H. quercifolia 'Burgundy' in a book and it said that it was an introduction from a place in the Netherlands but did not say how big or wide it gets. Do you know what the approximate dimensions are? Just wondering. There are quite a few "dwarf" oakleaf hydrangeas now and since I do not have much shady real estate, I have been concentrating on getting "small" hydrangeas.

Great, you may or may not have handled the root systems of these trees properly, but that's very unlikely to have anything to do with these leaf anomalies. Winding, girdling roots are an extremely important class of tree performance problems, but they come on later, and very gradually, as the main trunk gets squeezed by the increasing girth of one or more of these poorly-oriented roots. You're seeing something which is both much more temporary and likely much less damaging in the long run. The two conditions you show us are both either fungal, bacterial, abiotic, or a combo of all three, but at this point in the growing season, those leaves have done their work for the year and no heroic efforts should be taken to "cure" this problem, such as it is. To answer your question immediately above, trees (and all plants) do indeed often improve on their own, simply by dint of their root systems enlarging and taking in more nutrients in the soil solution. I can't tell you how many times I've seen newly-planted trees exhibit poor foliage color, only to "magically" get better on their own, the only magic involved being the trees' own growth. +o