Magnolia Felix Jury

The Magnolia 'Felix Jury' is a surprising new New Zealand hybrid with truly enormous spring flowers, sporting a beautiful dark pink colour and a pleasant and pronounced fragrance. They bloom abundantly in March-April, before the leaves, even on a young plant. With its moderate growth and compact habit, this particularly floriferous variety is well suited to small gardens where it will not go unnoticed! To ensure this bush thrives fully, provide it with a fresh, neutral to acidic soil and a sunny exposure.

This Magnolia, belonging to the Magnoliaceae family, is a very recent horticultural hybrid, resulting from cross-breeding between a seedling of Magnolia 'Iolanthe', with huge pink flowers, and the cultivar 'Vulcan', with an upright habit, appreciated for its spectacular corollas, a rich ruby red in late winter. 'Felix Jury' is a small tree or large bush with a pyramidal shape, reaching a height of about 4.5 metres at maturity, with a width of 3 metres. In March-April, enormous solitary and lightly scented flowers bloom before the leaves appear. Erect, they are 30cm wide and cup-shaped. These widely open flowers emerge from buds protected by silky bracts and are formed by tepals (indistinguishable sepals and petals) of a bright and intense pink veined with carmine, opening widely in star shapes around numerous pink and then yellow stamens encircling a large red pistil. Its deciduous foliage consists of large obovate leaves, light green on the upper side and paler and finely villous on the underside, turning yellow-brown in autumn, measuring 15 to 20 cm in length.

This 'Felix Jury' Magnolia, an extremely ornamental small tree in spring, will work wonders in a medium to small-sized garden, quickly becoming the star of the show in spring. It is most often used as a solitary specimen in the middle of a lawn, where its remarkable flowering is truly stunning. When planting, it is important to remember that once the flowering is over, it will somewhat fade into anonymity. Therefore, it is advantageous to associate it with a mass planting of acid-loving shrubs with staggered flowering times (Rhododendrons, Camellias, Hydrangeas, Witch Hazels, Pieris, Anemone Trees, Fothergilla...), for a Japanese-style garden. It is also possible to create beautiful flowering hedges along pathways, alternating this Magnolia with other cultivars (e.g. Magnolia grandiflora, Magnolia denudata, stellata, brooklyniensis, Michelia).

Anecdote:
Magnolias are ancient trees, with fossils dating back over 20 million years. Their magnificent flowering is considered one of the most primitive: their flowers are evolutionarily close to the earliest existing flowers.
The bark of magnolias has medicinal properties and is used in cosmetics.
Their wood is considered precious.