Sweetbay Magnolia

Sweetbay magnolia is the magnolia that grows in swamps, a graceful, often multi-stemmed tree with silvery-backed leaves that flash white in the wind and creamy, lemon-scented flowers that open in late spring and continue intermittently into summer. The flowers are smaller than southern magnolia, two to three inches, but the fragrance is exquisite, sweet and citrusy, carrying on humid air. Native to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Massachusetts to Florida and Texas, it grows in the wet, acidic soils of swamps, bogs, and stream banks where few other ornamental trees survive.

In Western Washington, sweetbay magnolia is one of the best ornamental trees for wet sites. It handles the poorly drained, acidic soils that define many lowland properties, and it tolerates seasonal flooding that would kill most magnolias. In the South, it is evergreen; here, it is typically semi-evergreen to deciduous, dropping most of its leaves in cold winters. The silvery leaf undersides provide a shimmering effect unique in the regional tree palette. No significant disease or pest concerns are tracked. For a refined, fragrant, multi-season tree that thrives where most ornamentals cannot, the low spots, the wet corners, the poorly drained clay, sweetbay magnolia fills a niche nothing else matches.