Just moved a magonlia susan bush do you tink it will live??

I have a Magnolia Susan Bush that we just moved from our back yard to the side yard today. I gave it lots of water and thie weekend we are to get even more rain..She still has her green leaves. What are the chances of her surviving the winter and blooming next spring..She is a 6 year old bush at 5 foot.

It largely depends upon the amount of roots you moved with plant. The more, the better - obviously. Keeping it watered is good. Mulch deeply for this first winter in its new location and remove all but 2-3" of the mulch in early spring to allow the ground to warm. They are a really nice shrub form magnolia.

It would also be of great help to the plant if you removed about a third of the branches, either cutting back overall, or thinning them out to reduce the stress of transplanting so early in the fall. Magnolias are tough plants, with a primitive, brittle root system (they date back to prehistoric times). Good luck. You could wait until spring and then cut out any branches that fail to leaf out.

I don't think that reducing top growth to minimize transplant stress is the current thinking, although it certainly used to be. Root initiation and new growth will be slowed if healthy branches are removed at transplanting because removing leaves reduces the auxins that initiate new root growth.

True, removing the tips of all branches will reduce the auxins, but thinning the branches will leave plenty of auxins (concentrated at the growing ends of branches) and substantially reduce the stress of transplanting, at least from my experience moving magnolias. We moved a 7' sweetbay magnolia two years ago, in July during a drought, cutting back about a third of the branches. It survived, and the next year put out wonderful growth. However, that's why I also said he could wait until spring and then cut out any branches that look weeny. (By the way, your suggestion to move all BUT 2-3" of mulch early in the spring was excellent since it would allow the roots to get growing before the plant leafs out.)

Magnolia's are a different animal. I just found that my 15 yr. old Dr Merrill is girdling itself with new roots! My personal preference would be to leave the Magnoliaq Susan alone now and remove any dead branches in the spring. Sort of 'let the shrub decide for itself' which branches it can support with the reduced root mass.

On the girdled, Dr. Merrill I cut two of the three girdling roots I found (about 10 days ago). One was 1/4" , one 1". I left one that was also 1" but wasn't very serious at this time although next summer I'll have to remove it. The reaction of the tree was interesting. I had three small branches, in very different areas of the canopy, where the leaves prematurely turned yellow and dropped. You just don't know what they'll do, I guess.

Isn't it interesting how plants react? It seems that the whole root system doesn't support the whole plant per se, but rather certain roots seem to support specific branches. I've had the same experience many times. The most recent is when we planted seven 12' container-grown (15 gallon), 1.5" caliper 'Shademaster' locust for a client. Unpotting the trees, we found circling roots, which of course spell trouble a few years down the road, so we cut the root ball in two places (untangling them proved impossible). After planting, each tree had yellowing and leaf drop in just a few areas of the crown, while the rest remained just fine. A certain amount of leaf drop is expected, but the pattern was curious. It makes sense that roots have a direct line to certain parts of the crown, kind of like a wiring system for a machine.