Hedge of Magnolia Bracken's Brown Beauty

19 years ago

Hi everybody!

I thought I would post on this forum because you guys are probably most familiar with Magnolia grandiflora.

Bracken's Brown Beauty is cold hardy and grows quite alright up here. There are a few growing in the Botanical garden.

I want to grow an evergreen hedge of BBB. BUT only 10-12 feet tall. I want to buy some whips and plant them about 5-6 feet apart then prune off some of the tops so that they start growing multi-trunked and the row develops as a thick hedge. Then as they reach the desired height I will just shear the top as needed.

Do you think this will work? Will the BBB whips cooperate and and become multi-trunked? Would the spacing of whips be correct?

I had originally thought I would use some high growing rhododendrons but that would take much too long.

About at what rate does BBB grow and at what age do they flower?

Thank you so much for any input!

Katyajini

Comment (1)

greenelbows1
19 years ago
I don't want to rain on your parade, but it seems to me if you treat magnolias this way you would lose all the qualities that make a magnolia a magnolia. Sheering anything with large leaves is going to leave a lot of pieces of leaves. I'm not sure of the natural ultimate height of Braken's Brown Beauty, but it's quite a lot taller than what you want, so you'd have to butcher it mercilessly. Wouldn't it be better to get a plant that doesn't grow so tall naturally, and has smaller leaves? In fairness, I have to confess I think there are better ways to spend time than shearing hedges of any kind--which must be done regularly to give the desired effect--but I just can't imagine any large-leaved plant that would look well sheared. If space is a problem how about vines?
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