Skinner’s Banana Shrub Magnolia – 3 Gallon Pot

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Michelia figo x skinneriana, commonly called Skinner’s Banana Shrub or Skinner’s Magnolia, features flowers in spring and summer that smell like a banana popsicle. Though banana shrubs aren’t known to be super-fast growers, this selection is said to be faster growing than the species. Like its parent, which has been around the U.S. since the 1700s, it forms a highly attractive large shrub or small tree that reaches 15 feet tall on average and 10 to 15 feet wide, clothed in lush, glossy, oblong evergreen leaves, which makes it ideal as a specimen or hedge. Starting in mid-spring, the 1-inch magnolia-like, cream colored flowers, which age to pink and yellow, are produced in abundance, and then sporadically thereafter through mid-summer. An easy-to-grow, low-maintenance, heat-lover for USDA Zones 7a-11, it will grow in full sun or part shade; however, the foliage is darker green with filtered sun or shade during the afternoon, so we have ours planted in a site that meets these preferences. Excellent for containers situated on or around patios and other outdoor seating spaces where the fragrance can be enjoyed from up close. Northerners who garden north of Zone 7a can overwinter container-grown plants indoors with sufficient light. If you’ve never smelled the flowers of Banana Shrub, it’s sure to be love at first scent!

The Skinner’s Banana Shrub can be grown as a large shrub, or lower branches can be removed to form a small tree that matures to about 15 feet tall and almost as wide. It is ideal for use as a specimen, in groupings, or as an evergreen hedge in sunny to partially shaded landscape borders. It is also useful in home foundation plantings to frame the corners or against a large, open wall. A fine addition to the fragrance or cottage garden. Plant it near or around outdoors seating and living spaces where the fragrance can be enjoyed from close up. A fine addition to fragrance and sensory gardens, as well as tropical-look gardens.

Suggested Spacing:  8 to 10 feet apart for a solid hedge;  18 feet or more apart for space between plants

Note: For our customers who live and garden north of USDA Cold Hardiness Zone 7a, where the Banana Shrub is not reliably winter hardy, you’ll be happy to know it can be grown in containers that can be brought indoors during winter and placed back outside when temperatures warm up in spring.

The Skinner’s Banana Shrub prefers a moist but well-drained acidic soil with plenty of organic matter. Leaves of the Banana Shrub growing in direct, full sun will be a lighter shade of green. Some filtered sun or dappled shade during the mid-afternoon hours in summer produces deeper green leaves, which we think is more attractive. Though listed as hardy in USDA Zones 7-10, the plant may suffer some damage when severe winters occur in Zone 7. Mulching in winter when plants are young and getting established, and planting on the east side of a home or other heated structure in Zone 7 can help protect them from winter winds. It is not particularly fast growing and can be pruned after blooming, but is most impressive when allowed to grow to natural size and shape.

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