Magnolia x wieseneri 'Charm and Fragrance'

This Magnolia is popular in the nursery trade. However, it is not an easy plant to grow and rather difficult to propagate. It is more of a large shrub than a tree. It bears sweet-scented, creamy white flowers that contrast beautifully with the numerous (up to 150!) burgundy to old pink coloured stamens. Because the  bowl-shaped flowers appear late in the season (May-June), they escape late spring frosts.  But earlier in the season,  both leaves and young twigs are frost tender. Therefore this Magnolia needs a somewhat sheltered spot. We bought the mother plant as Magnolia x wieseneri (a cross of M. obovata with M. sieboldii) in 1992 from Spinners, a specialist nursery in the UK, and in 2011 we decided to register it as a new cultivar. We chose the name 'Charm and Fragrance' because of its charming flowers whose strong sweet scent meets you from afar.