My beautiful magnolia isn’t looking too good and not sure if it’s normal.

[u/solabear]

Hi all, a lot of the leaves look like this. We googled the problem and says it needs watering. But we water it consistently through out the week. Especially when it’s really hot. Any thoughts?

[u/rodgeramjit]

The damage does look like sunburn, the old adages about water causing sunburn to worsen have been disproven on most plants that aren't hairy. This looks like a deciduous magnolia (correct me if wrong) which has shiny leaves and would not be affected by overhead watering.

Have you recently pruned or cleared anything near the tree? It's possible that those parts of the leaves were partially protected from the sun previously and are now more exposed.

[u/solabear → u/rodgeramjit]

No pruning as of yet. Do you think it’s best to prune it down and got rid of the sunburned leaves?

[u/rodgeramjit → u/solabear]

Wait a few weeks and see if the issue continues. If it stops you can trim off a few of the worst ones to improve the aesthetic.

[u/solabear → u/rodgeramjit]

Thank you for your help, I’ll do that and see how we go.

[u/Aussiealterego]

It looks like you’ve watered it when the sun is out, and the water droplets have acted like a magnifying glass. That’s sunburn.