Magnolia x brooklynensis 'HATTIE CARTHAN' Brooklyn hybrid magnolia
size/type
small tree,taller shrub
usual height
4-7m
usual width
1,5-3m
leaves
deciduous broadleaf
colour of leaves
flowers
showy
colour of flowers
blooming time
April-May
location
full to partial sun
USDA zone (lowest)
5 (down to -29°C)
winter protection
for zone 5+6
for zone 7
categorized
Magnolia
Hattie Carthan (1900-1984) was an American environmental activist who, if she were still alive, would most likely not approve of such a poser label. She was simply an African American who cared about trees and didn't like their unnecessary destruction. When she moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1953, the streets were lined with trees. Over the next 10 years, she witnessed their decline and sadly watched the last 3 trees that remained on the street by 1964. She decided to act. She founded an association to save them and restore greenery to the neighbourhood. To all local residents, she sent a request for contributions, but not awkwardly at all – it was a party invite! She started throwing charity parties which really helped her raise funds to buy and plant new trees in the streets. One of them was even attended by the then-mayor of New York, John Lindsay, who liked her idea and enthusiasm and supported her. Just as he did with his election campaign. In 1966, Hattie founded the Bedford-Stuyvesant Beautification Committee, which received a grant to teach young people how to care for trees and provided them with scholarships for summer jobs associated with planting and caring for urban greenery. In 1968, she fought to save a 12-meter magnolia grandiflora tree that was to be cut down due to a new parking lot development project. She saved not only the tree but also several nearby brownstone-style homes, where the Magnolia Tree Earth Centre educational centre now resides. Hattie managed not only to flood Brooklyn with greenery but also to bring people together and get to know each other through meaningful work. During her active years, she witnessed the planting of 1,500 trees. A year after her death, a community garden was created in her honour, which by 2009 expanded to an impressive 2,076 acres and operates to this day under the name Hattie Carthan Community Garden Farm. Here, vegetables and fruit trees are grown together, meals are shared, and people who care about their future and their surroundings come together. She was nicknamed the Tree Lady.Description of the plant:
Hattie Carthan magnolia was bred by Doris Stone from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden by cross-pollinating several unnamed m. x brooklynensis hybrids (m.acuminata x magnolia x liliiflora) and ‘Evamaria’ variety. The result was a stunning magnolia with firm flowers of elongated tepals. They are 10-12 cm long and 6-8 cm wide, pale yellow with purple veins ascending from the base. They come out late in the season, commonly from the very end of April, and as the flower buds mature and open gradually the blooming time is extended to about 3 weeks and always escape late spring frosts. It grows rather slowly into a neat, narrowly pyramidal habit, forming a tall shrub or a medium-sized tree about 5 m tall in gardens and almost 8 m tall in parks with unlimited root space. Deciduous leaves are ovate to obovate, medium green. Hattie Carthan magnolia was introduced around 1985 and it turned out that owing to genes of m.liliiflora in its veins the safest and most stable way of reproduction is grafting. Only so it will look as described.
Magnolias are not supposed to be pruned. You can prune old shrubs if ill, or trim them to shape or to reduce size, or make an elementary cut to young plants of unsightly or unhealthy appearance. Do this as soon as possible after flowering to secure setting of flower buds for the following year. Be aware that each magnolia can respond differently to pruning.
Deciduous magnolias are quite easy plants. All they need is light, well-drained, acidic soil with equal moisture throughout the year. Once established they can do with occasional drought but will not look as nice as the ones with regular watering. Just pay attention to how you plant your magnolia. First, find it a spot where it will live forever and ever. It does not like transplanting. And as it makes shallow roots reaching well over its spread, stay away from disturbing the roots by digging or messing about around it. Just cover the soil with bark mulch and do not plant anything else near it after say the second year after planting onwards. You could damage the important top roots that absorb maximum moisture and nutrients from the soil. Also avoid planting magnolia too deep. Thus, you could be digging it a grave. Hardy is abt. -29 °C (USDA zone 5).
Last update 08-12-2020
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GLOSSARY
- STANDARD QUALITY - Plants of this group are 1st class quality with number of branches and overall density adequate to their size and age, considering they were container grown.
- DE LUXE QUALITY - This label guarantees a luxurious quality of manually selected plants that, compared to their height and age, are exceptionally dense and beautiful.
- EXTRA - These plants are usually mature and bigger specimens with exceptional overall appearance.
- STANDARD (as described in the plant form) means a tree with a trunk of 190-210 cm and a crown at the top, unless specified differently. The commercial size for trees is their girth measured in the height of 1m from ground.
- HOBBY - These plants are of the same quality as our standard-quality plants but younger and therefore cheaper.
- SHRUB - a woody plant with branches growing bushy from the ground level.
- HALF-STANDARD or MINI-STANDARD - a small tree with shorter trunk, its size is usually specified.
- FEATHERED - These are trees with branches growing already from the base of the trunk and up along the stem.
- GRASSES and PERENNIALS - Sizes given usually read the diameter of the pot or the clump, as specified.
