Hey islandbreeze,

I'm not in Michigan, but I'm in southeast WI ... 3 miles from the lake. I just planted an Edith Bogue this past April. It's about 4 feet tall. I am trying to figure out how to protect it this winter, so maybe you can give me some pointers. My winter coldest winter nights vary from -5 to -15 depending on the year. Normals in January are 29/16.

I bought some Wilt Pruf and was going to spray that on next month, but need to figure out how to keep it from defoliating or having stem die back. You have any pictures of yours? Here's mine.

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Wxman, here are a few pics. I actually have 2 Southern Magnolias, but only 1 is Edith Bogue. I'm not sure what variety the other is, but the underside of the leaves is green, and it's not quite as hardy. The leaf burn after winter is a lot more obvious with the smaller magnolia. The smaller did suffer die-back when we hit -12 a couple winters ago, right to the snow line, which was about a foot. It has since not died back but leaves do drop in the spring and it regrows new ones. The Edith Bogue is currently 8 feet tall, the smaller magnolia is about 4 feet.

Looks great! Especially love the Edith Bogue. Few questions... when did you plant it in the ground and how big was it? Also how are you protecting it? We seem to get similar low temperatures so I'm trying to figure out what to do with it this winter...

Did you use Wilt Pruf?

Thanks. I planted it 3 years ago, it's been through 2 winters, the first one protected, and last winter no protection. When I did protect it, the only thing I did was put up a burlap screen around it. Last winter it was already too big to protect, so I took my chances. It did great, and gives visual interest all winter, being one of the only trees with leaves on it. I won't protect it this year either, way too big now to protect. I would say it was about 5 feet when I planted it, so it grows about a foot a year, and I get at least twice as many blooms as the previous summer. This year I think I got at least 15 blooms, so next year I'm looking at 30 plus. Lots of flowers.

I don't know what your temps look like, so I can't recommend that you don't protect yours, but we usually seem to bottom out at between zero and -5 most recent winters, although as I said, we did hit -12 on an extremely cold winter. I'm on an island, only about a mile from Lake Erie, so we have a good microclimate. A city about 20 miles to the south got down to -20 the same night. Seeing as yours is small, I would protect it, at least while I could. Burlap seems to be the key to keep the sun and wind from dessicating the leaves while the ground is frozen. I'm doubtful that wilt-pruf will be as effective.