Other Names:  Michelia figo, Banana Magnolia

Description:

This wonderful shrub has lustrous evergreen leaves and produces violet-red blooms; flowers are showy, and bloom sporadically throughout the season with an intense banana-like fragrance

Ornamental Features

Purple Queen Banana Shrub features showy fragrant violet cup-shaped flowers with red overtones and deep purple centers along the branches from mid spring to late summer. It has attractive dark green evergreen foliage which emerges light green in spring. The glossy pointy leaves are highly ornamental and remain dark green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Purple Queen Banana Shrub is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its relatively coarse texture can be used to stand it apart from other landscape plants with finer foliage.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Purple Queen Banana Shrub is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Hedges/Screening
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Purple Queen Banana Shrub will grow to be about 12 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 12 feet. It has a low canopy, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 30 years.

This shrub does best in full sun to partial shade. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in rich soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone over the growing season to conserve soil moisture. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.

Purple Queen Banana Shrub makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. Its large size and upright habit of growth lend it for use as a solitary accent, or in a composition surrounded by smaller plants around the base and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.