Filling your garden with zinnias and peonies can bring color and new life to your living space—but adding these beautiful blossoming trees will bring a whole new element of grace and style to your yard. Check out our 10 favorite magnolia blooms and consider adding them to your landscape.
Judy is one of eight magnolias in the Little Girl series. Shrubby and compact by nature, they can be selectively pruned to form multitrunked trees up to 15 feet tall.
This magnolia reveals its star parentage in pompom-like flowers with loose, strappy petals.
A saucer magnolia, this flower bears rosy pink buds that open to pale interiors with just a hint of pink. Eventually it can reach up to 25 feet with a rounded crown.
This first yellow-flowered hybrid became a horticultural sensation when it was introduced in the 1970's. The tree is pyramidal and can grow up to 40 feet at maturity.
The Alexandrina magnolia displays flaring pink-purple chalices. This saucer-shaped flower is often multitrunked and grows up to 30 feet tall.
This unique flower's seed pods split open to allow fleshy red seeds to emerge. Ornamental but messy, the seed pods of this evergreen species follow powerfully perfumed white flowers in summer.
The Centennial star magnolia covers itself with shaggy white blooms that are faintly infused with pink. It's early to bloom and therefore is susceptible to damage from late frosts.
Another of the Little Girl hybrids, the Betty magnolia blooms profusely in the spring. Summer brings occasional flowers that are tucked among the leaves.
The Spectrum magnolia offers flowers in a rich red-purple hue and up to 10 inches across.
Like her sisters in the Little Girl series—Betty and Judy—Ann blooms two to four weeks after saucer and star magnolias, usually sparing the flowers from frost damage.