It'll be in the higher end of that range, about 30-40 feet high, 15-25 feet wide. It does bloom later, but can still get hit from an unusually late spring freeze or frost.

The big disadvantage that I see with this Magnolia is that it blooms AFTER the tree leafs out, so the blooms are not as prominent as with the promiscuous flowering magnolias.
tl³

I live in zone 5b. I am also curious to know whether this magnolia can really reach 40' high and 25' wide. My garden is quite narrow, I will not be able to vae it then.

It would help a lot if someone can post a picture of his/her Yellow Bird magnolia and state its age.

Thanks.

Too new on the market for anyone to have photos of older trees. Even the original seedling probably isn't finished developing (the final size of a tree occurs when it goes into a decline or blows over). 'Butterflies' seems to have been a hit in the northeast, where it apparently tends to flower well ahead of the leaves. Trees offered at Home Depot could be anything, similarly loose-with-labeling Lowe's had two different variety cards on the same block of a single yellow magnolia cultivar near here this spring. Last year a nearby Home Depot had some sweetbay magnolia labeled 'Elizabeth'.

I've been growing 'Yellow Bird' for awhile (it was acquired as 'Butterflies' from a local garden center). It took me a bit of time to figure out it was the one instead of the other. It does have a tendency to flower after the leaves have come out far enough to obscure the blooms. Much (most?) of the point of this introduction was the large size of the flowers, however only one comparatively prime specimen I have seen in this area had big flowers in enough abundance at one time to be impressive.

I did a search and found it to be hearty up to zone 2A and was about to fuss because I had no idea it existed. After reading bboy's post, maybe I'm not missing out on much. Is it really yellow at least, unlike the primrose lilac...

Super old post but worth reviving I think. :-)

bboy,

You mention that you only saw one prime specimen in your area. After 5 more years, did your tree ever develop into something more admirable? I like the flowering magnolias but this is really the only one that I've come across that is projected to grow toward the large tree range (30+ feet). In your experience, does it grow relatively fast?

Thanks.

This post was edited by thapranksta on Thu, Oct 3, 13 at 14:31

It died. 30' is a small tree, most magnolias grow taller. One of the reasons lily and star magnolia, the hybrids between these two, as well as Oyama magnolia etc. will be among the more prevalent is that these tend to be smaller growing.

That sucks. I was referring to the flowering deciduous magnolias in particular when I said large tree because it seems most of them I've read about are expected to be between 15-25 feet at maturity.

This post was edited by thapranksta on Fri, Oct 4, 13 at 16:42