Loebner Magnolia Seeds

currently unavailable Loebner magnolia is a natural hybrid of star and kobus magnolias. Its vigor and adaptibility to less than ideal conditions makes this a durable and popular landscape selection in the north. Kobus magnolia is a Japanese magnolia and the Star Magnolia Magnolia stellata. It was first discovered prior to World War I in Germany of garden origin. Since then many seedlings have been named and found. My goal was to create a hedgerow of the most vigorous hybrids on a sandy wind swept hill. This area was the most unfriendly magnolia location ever. Dry and windy is not a good place for them but I was producing so many of them I was able to select about 20 plants or so of the most vigorous seedlings from over a thousand seedlings.  Eventually the selections that were the most vigorous, were able to grow in soil with little organic matter. This eventually lead to heavy flowering, fruiting and seed production in the years ahead. Plants can be grown from seed with this hybrid selection. Trees are a pyramidal dense tree with excellent thick branching. 

From seed, this is a good cross to produce healthy vigorous seedlings and even to make cultivar selections from. Some will be named in the future and grown from cuttings. But it is not entirely necessarily because the seedlings all have beautiful flowers as is.

To germinate the seeds: Seeds have a hard brittle seed coat and only require a cold dormancy of 90-120 days. The seeds need to be kept moist otherwise they will perish. After I process, I store the seed in moist sand. The seed is then refrigerator to prevent mold. Magnolia seed can be sown as it after the dormancy or you can pot each seedling. Cover lightly with 1/4 inch peat. Seeds will produce a tap root first and then throw a top. Very easy to grow from seed.