Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star'

Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star' is the star magnolia at its best, a hardy, rounded shrub that opens its first flowers at the very end of winter, well before the leaves, in a froth of white, many-petaled stars. Each bloom carries a dozen or more narrow, strap-like tepals that give a soft, feathery look, and the whole plant can vanish under bloom in a good year, sweetly fragrant into the bargain.

The star magnolia is a hardy Japanese species from the mountains of Honshu, and the epithet stellata, Latin for starry, describes the flowers exactly. 'Royal Star' is widely reckoned one of the best of the many named forms, a little larger in flower and reliably free-blooming. The genus Magnolia honors Pierre Magnol, the seventeenth-century French botanist of Montpellier.

One honest caution comes with all the earliest magnolias: the very trait that makes 'Royal Star' precious, that late-winter flowering, also exposes the blooms to late frosts, and a hard freeze can brown an open flower overnight. In the years when the weather cooperates, though, the show is unforgettable, and even a young plant flowers generously. Plant in a spot that warms slowly in spring, away from early-morning sun on frozen buds, to tip the odds in your favor.

Compact enough for a small garden, 'Royal Star' shines as a specimen, in a foundation planting, in a mixed border, or near a patio where the early fragrance can be enjoyed. Give full sun for the heaviest bloom, part shade in the hottest climates, and rich, well-drained soil kept evenly moist. Bright green summer leaves turn soft gold in fall, and the naturally rounded habit needs little pruning, an easy, long-lived shrub that announces spring before almost anything else.