Never plant a plant in the wrong place and then plan to "prune to keep it small". Not only will you not prune it to keep it small, but the few times you actually do may damage the plant. Especially that plant. Always plant according to mature size.

Thank you for your response Dan. I agree with what you are saying but there's no room in my backyard for the tree and if I can make room I'd rather have a fruit tree :). My only concern is the roots damaging the house foundation, that would be a very very costly mistake

Tree roots rarely damage foundations. They like to go the path of least resistance.

I have seen HUGE trees plants only 5 or 6 ft from a foundation. I would not worry about it.

This link has information about keeping this tree trimmed to around 10 ft.

Michelia Alba

You're welcome Thach, that plant likely won't damage your foundation.

Hopefully you have the right, frost free or nearly so climate for it.

You just planted a tree that won't like hard frost the entire time it is there - 3 or 4 years is nothing, what matters is what the long term conditions are likely to be like.

Too close to the fence, unless you don't mind that it will be deformed on one side. Doesn't sugarcane spread like crazy? What about ginger?

Embothrium I think it should be fine and if it dies I wouldn't loose any sleep over it because the scent of the flower is over rated in my opinion. Wish I got to smell the flower before I bought it. Oh well...ill just stick to fruit trees next time lol. Rhizo a lot of people have that assumption about sugarcane but no it grows in clumps and don't send out runner roots that spread like crazy. The ginger might have been a problem but I moved the tree, I don't want a headache down the road when the trunk get too big. It's now 3 feet from the fence.. Hopefully that's enough room for the trunk to grow.

Yes that's more sugarcane in the background.. I'm a sugarcane nut lol its in every corner of my yard. I have 8 varieties and counting :)