Magnolia Problems

annetteck

Hi
I am a home gardener and have been browsing your site. I hope someone might be able to help me with my magnolia tree.
I inherited this magnolia tree with the house which I bought 10 years ago in Sydney's North Shore.
For the first few years it seemed to be fine however it was overcrowded. So I cleared around it a bit to give it space for the tree to develop its natural shape.
It gets full sun all year in a north facing garden. The top half of the tree is also exposed to those hot westerlies we have been getting the last few years around September and October.

The tree develops buds and leaves but the buds fail to open or and the leaves don't develop and if they do, they look eaten or deformed, so that the tree looks bare all year.

The bottom quarter of the tree, below the fence line, flowers and develops full sized leaves.

I also found out in the height of the drought, when all the older established shrubs started to die, that the garden bed below layers of mulch been covered at some stage, in black plastic...Do you believe any idiot would do this??
I have endeavored to remove as much of this plastic from the garden bed, as I can.

Is the tree in the wrong position or is it diseased, stressed or dying?
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks

Farawaytree

Hi Annetteck,
Hard to diagnose without seeing your Magnolia?
From what you say, I do know that you may have exposed your Magnolia
to the Northerly elements and it may not like it. If it was crowded by other tree's and you removed this cover. Particularly if the bottom half of the tree seems fine and is still being sheltered by the fence. You may have disturbed the micro-climate for your Magnolia. You could try and build a lattice shade shelter to your fence or plant a fast growing shade tree 2-3mts beside it, OR both. You were right to remove the black plastic. Feed up your tree, esp now.
You will have to wait and see for improvement, I guess.
You can always plant a new Magnolia. Particularly as you can get advanced tree's now.
Hope this helps.
Farawaytree

PTC

could be possums eating the new leaves, photos might help

Farawaytree

Greetings PTC
I have not heard of possums liking Magnolias to eat.
Sometimes Magnolia flowers (as with other shrubs)
can appear eaten/deformed if they are too exposed to the elements.
The unopened buds appear damaged and chipped like they have been eaten by something.
Yes, some photos would be a big help here.
Farawaytree

annetteck

I have been watching out and I found the brush tail culprit red-handed tonight. Now I have the answer to my tree's problem I'll have to figure out a gentle solution. Any ideas? I don't really want to leave the back light on all night.
Thanks Annette

newguy18

a .22 does wonders for possums.

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old schooler

dov

Brush-tails seem a bit harder to deal with than ring-tails. Cutting the Magnolia and/or surrounding vegetation so there is 1.5m clearance will help. Fitting a wide collar to the base and any low branches may help as well. If you can't bring yourself to trim it back too much, try collars on branches that the possum uses for access. If you do trim things back, get someone decent in to do the job. A well established Magnolia can a beautiful thing and it would be a great shame to ruin the shape of it either immediately or for the future through bad pruning.