Before the deciduous foliage regenerates, saucer magnolia, Magnolia X soulangeana, is already completely overwhelmed with a profusion of big pastel pink and white flowers. Some of the many cultivars bloom white, paler pink or purplish. Some are more purple than pink. Individual flowers are about six inches wide. Some cultivars bloom with globular flowers that do not open quite so broadly. Others open even wider. The largest flowers can get almost a foot wide. Eventually, fading flowers will be replaced with big and soft lime green leaves. Most saucer magnolia trees are grown with several trunks and low branches to display the bloom more prominently, as well as to display the sculptural branch structure while bare through winter. The flat bark is strikingly light gray.
Tony Tomeo 
Wow, they sound beautiful.
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They are spectacular, but all those flowers can be a slippery mess on pavement.
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Yes we have magnolia trees here that bloom so beautiful in the spring. But their petals fall on the ground and are like leather then and need to be cleaned up, plus slippery if they get wet. There’s one across the street from my house. I get to enjoy the show of the blooms and don’t have to clean up after.
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These saucer magnolias and other deciduous magnolias are still somewhat uncommon here. They were even more rare years ago. However, the Southern magnolia had formerly been common. It is completely different, with very messy evergreen foliage. The sporadic flowers are exquisite up close, but from a distance, are barely visible within all the evergreen foliage. Instead of blooming all at once in spring, they bloom randomly and lightly throughout the year.
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There aren’t many here, since the winters are so bad. Most don’t get many blooms on.
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I would have guessed that they prefer cooler winters. They are happy very happy in the Pacific Northwest, although those that I have seen there are at low elevations and near Puget Sound or the Columbia River.
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Cooler probably yea, but our winters are better described as brutal. They do seem to live a long time and get quite big here, just don’t get as many flowers as I’ve seen on some in some states to the south, like in the Carolinas.
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So, winters might stay cooler later, and damage the expanding floral buds.
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Yea, it’s usually really cold here thru February and usually March is pretty cold too.
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Can’t wait. They are all over the place here. And they make spring fabulous.
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Yes, they are like early spring bulbs on a tree.
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