Standard red lucky magnolia plant

comp13

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well and keeping your spirits up. I need some tips if you have any about this magnolia plant I bought off Groupon last year. I only have a small garden and I use it essentially as a kitchen garden, growing vegetables so I only have a few flowers and no trees at all, but I’ve always wanted a magnolia tree so when I saw this one I thought it would be perfect as it’s supposed to grow in a pot. It has only brought out a few leaves and no flowers at all this spring. I bought it bare root last spring and put it in the pot, it is supposed to be suitable for a pot and I don’t think there were any special instructions with it I don’t remember seeing any. I haven’t really done any special maintenance apart from general compost and a little all purpose feed, that’s what I do for all my plants because I try to keep the gardening simple and costs down. So let me know what you think, is it too early for me to expect flowers or is there something wrong with it. Thanks 

kind regards
Vivienne. 

JennyJ

The pot looks very small. I would try repotting in a bigger pot with soil-based compost, not standard multipurpose. If you can get a soil-based ericaceous compost, so much the better.

comp13

Ok thanks, I was also thinking of taking it out of the pot and planting it in the ground. 

JennyJ

That would work too! I got the impression you wanted to keep it in a pot.

BobTheGardener

'Lucky Red' will flower from when it is very, very young in my experience but not in the first year after planting from a bare root (I have a couple which I bought 2 years ago) but will almost certainly flower next March or thereabouts, whether left in the pot or planted into the ground.  If you have somewhere you can put it in the ground I would do so, but would advise leaving doing that until the leaves drop in autumn as it hasn't been in the pot long enough to develop many new roots and those may break off if you try and plant it now, which it won't like at all.  Keep it well watered until then.

comp13

Yes I was nervous before but think I will take my chance in the soil hopefully I will manage to keep it from growing big like regular magnolia trees. Thanks for the advice Bob and Jenny I will look forward to flowers next spring and I will get the special compost for it hopefully that will coax it.