I believe those pink ones are japanese magnolias. A sounthern magnolia in its prime is a lovely tree. They do much better in the northern part of florida than the southern part.

I'm a native an am not impressed by southern magnolias. They are very messy and pop up all over. The magnolia in your picture is magnificent.

Judyk, that pink one is just as messy. See all those petals on the ground? And before the japanese magnolia flowers it drops its leaves.

I also have a pink magnolia (Pennsylvania) but about 2 years out of every 4 the frost kills the flowers before it's beautiful like the one in Jane's photo.

Pea, they do not drop their leaves before they flower. The tree loses its leaves in the Fall. It flowers before its leaves.

All flowering trees/shrubs lose their flowers.

The beauty of the flowers is so worth the one time messiness.

Marcia, I know what you mean! It happened to us many times. Each Spring when the tree was just ready to flower, we’d all state, “for sure, frost tonight!”

jane

In florida the pink loses its leaves before the flowers...there were a few on my college campus and every year the leaves would fall and it would flower and then the flowers would drop and new leaves would appear.

Jofus about that confederate rose...a heads up...they get white fly real bad. I've never seen a bush that gets white fly as much as the confederate rose.

Thanks for the tip Pea, but we have no choice 'cause we've been growing this plant now for over 6 mos. It's in a big pot, a robust 2 1/2 ft tall now,..been nursing it from a seed all that time. We'll use the NEEM oil if we have to and hope for the best !

Jofus, pink magnolias in Central Park along with Japanese Cherries. I grew up in Queens, moved to the City then to Westchester, a suburb outside Manhattan.

I first fell in love with the pink and white Magnolias in Central Park.

Jane

Jofus, my confederate rose is about 10 feet tall. It will look fabulous all decked out in blooms then horrendous when the white fly move in. I wish mine was planted in the back yard not smack in the middle of the front as its not so pretty year round. Hard to treat a giant 10ft bush for white fly.

I cut my confederate rose to the ground this spring because of the nasty white flies. It's hard to treat the underside of the leaves with spray.

Jane, the first thing I thought when I saw your post was "There's another snowbird, telling us how much better things are up north." When I ran into those people down in SW Florida, my reply was always "You know, if the north is so much better, I-95 goes both ways." We both have things that we consider "better" than somewhere else. And here in FL, we never have to shovel sunshine. I'll put our jacarandas and royal poincianas up against your magnolias any day of the week. :)

Being from the South, southern magnolias are as much a part of me as iced tea and fried chicken. I absolutely love them. Last year, the one in front of my apartment bloomed like mad and I'd sit out there every night smelling that wonderful perfume. This year, it's been so dry that most of the buds just fell off, and now it's dropping all its leaves, which I will leave for the mowers to chop up before I use them as mulch.

Pea and Marcia, I'm doing systemic insecticide this year with my Confederate Rose. Last year, the ladybugs moved in and made short work of the whitefly, but it's already started, and I'm not willing to let it get as sick as it got last year. The blooms were all distorted. I'm not going to put it anywhere but around the confederate rose, in fact, I might just paint it on the trunks instead of putting it into the soil, but there really isn't much around that it can hurt.

Plus, I planted a second one in the courtyard, so even more reason to go systemic. The whitefly attacks all my hibiscus once it gets started.

IMHO deciduous magnolia is far more attractive, but of course you don't have to get Japanese. I am trying to find a source for Cucumber Magnolia - I found a couple of places in FL but they are sold out! If anyone has any experience with deciduous mags, please share!

corkbait, will that magnolia grow down here? Everything I see on it says zones 4-8, and it's native ot Missouri, so must like colder weather than we have.

This northern/southern and deciduous/evergreen debate is kinda silly. I live in the "North" (Zone 7/NJ) and grow and love all of them; Saucer Magnolias, Star Magnolias, M. virginiana, and M. grandifloras. (In fact, one of the great things about living in Zone 7 is that "northern" and "southern" species converge..., thus, permitting a wider variety of gardening potentials.) The deciduous ones with which I am familiar drop all their leaves in November at one time. M. grandiflora will drop leaves most heavily in May into June, just as new growth is bursting out. There is sporadic leaf drop throughout the year..., especially under arid conditions but virtually none in the Autumn when other trees require A LOT of raking. All are resistant to pests and disease. Not sure which species is known as Cucumber, but do know that some of the large-leaved deciduous ones really seem to prefer some degree of protection from excessive sun (even in the North); I rarely see them growing out in the open.

There are a number of deciduous magnolias - some from Asia, some native, and then some crosses. The one I was looking at was Magnolia acuminata, but also eyeing bigleaf or possibly umbrella. I had some star magnolias back in MN, and they grew fine anywhere I planted them, but they never got big (biggest I saw was about 25').

I like the idea of deciduous magnolia, and am playing around with a number of borderline 8-9 'southern' trees like tulip tree, red buckeye, florida maple, blackgum, peaches - so FAR so good. The local nursery has Japanese mags, but they are bigger and more expensive than I want to take a chance on - magnolias are supposedly difficult to transplant. So if anyone has any advice (sources, tips) on deciduous mags in Ocala area, let me know. Thanks guys!

Juraisico, I used to live in SC, in what was 7b and now is 8a after the zone map update. I miss a lot of my plants from that area, such as the dwarf azaleas packed with blooms in the spring, the yellow bells, and crabapples which are so beautiful in the spring when they bloom, and give you so much wonderful fruit for jellies and jams. I even miss quinces, although pruning them was a nightmare!

Corkball1, I miss tulip poplars! We had a huge one in our yard in SC and I waited impatiently for it to bloom every year.

I was born and raised in Forest Hills NY. Japanese magnolias, and to a far lesser extent southern magnolias were both common yard trees in my neighborhood.

The Japanese magnolias always put on an amazing show and came in pink, yellow, magenta, white, and cream colored varieties. The pink was by far the most common, the yellow and cream were the rarest. The pink and magenta varieties always continued to bloom sporadically after the trees had leafed out, very well into summer.

The leaves on the southern magnolia are more attractive...large, dark, glossy, leathery, and evergreen. The flowers although far less abundant are much larger individually.

Bok towers in Polk county Florida has young Japanese magnolias. So they do grow in central Florida but they don't produce anywhere even close to the number of blooms they produce in more northerly states.

FJ - that might work. I don't mind lack of flowers.

Dirty G - I have 2 tulip poplars south of you and they look healthy. I suspect the main issue is they are shallow rooted and big ones would blow over in hurricanes... but who knows? Check back for updates!

Will do! Yeah, poplars aren't hurricane friendly, sadly, but then neither are live oaks, really, but they plant them all over the place anyway.