In article , "madgardener" wrote:

"paghat" wrote in message
news
In article , "James"
wrote:

I'm wanting to start some Royal Empress trees from seed and plant a row
of
them along my long driveway. ( PAULOWNIA tomentosa) Anyone had these
trees
and am wondering about any drawbacks to the idea?

Nature Conservancy's Invasive Species Initiative requests that people
voluntarily stop planting these trees even in places where they are not
yet illegal. They sometimes sucker & invariably self-seed like weeds, to
the point of being invasive. They are illegal in about a dozen states, &
are on lists recommended for banning in several more regions. In
Connecticut for example (as of this past October) you can be fined a
hundred dollars for planting, transplanting, or selling paulownia. The
species has already proven itself a danger to native species in several
areas around the United States, being worst in the east, south &
southwest, but not yet too late to keep it from spreading throughout the
west.

I can attest to the fact that they are prolific throughout the southeast.
They're a common tree here in Eastern Tennessee. And yes, they do sucker.
I have a daughter that has risen up on the roots of her mama a few feet down
my side slope.

The tree is the kudzu of Tennessee. Since it's far too late for it to ever
be gotten rid of -- it's there to stay! -- the University of Tennessee has
been doing studies on how it can be used for regional forestry products, &
Tennessee is becoming something of the Paulownia capital of North America
looking for further economic gains from the tree rather than fighting it
off. It's not the ecologically soundest choice, but it's too late to ban
it so the state's attitude seems to be "let's see what we can gain from
it."

They grow rapidly but have weak wood that easily rots from the inside
which is naturally hollow.

I don't know about the wood being weak though. I have a Pawlonia tree, and
yes, she is hollow in the middle. But she only drops the ends of her twigs
where the pods are all at. The pods are a pain in the butt, but the flowers
(this tree is also called the Foxglove tree) are georgous and smell like
grape Nehi. The leaves are fuzzy and if you cut the young trees to the
ground each fall, they send up spring shoots and the leaves are as big as
three foot across sometimes.

Our native Pacific red elderberry is also extremely HARD wood that can be
used to make extremely hard objects, but a big Pacific elder can be
knocked right over even by a bear or a moderate wind. They can grow ten
feet in a single year so are very weak, despite the surprising hardness of
the brittle wood.

Poulownia wood is rot resistant once it is turned into wood products, &
the outer part of the trunk can be used to build something that sits on
damp soil for decades & barely rot. But a living paulownia tree is
susceptible to a whole host of diseases, & most especially root, ring, &
basal rot caused by fungus, which soon extends through the interior of the
tree. The outside of the trunk might never show advance signs of a
problem. Rot can also enter a tree through broken limbs, or reach the pith
through the circlular tissue plates that appear at intervals along the
trunk, especially when limbs break off or are pruned from these tissue
plates which are quite thin. Emilycompost.com notes that "Canker, die
back, powdery mildew, wood rot and mushroom rot are the most common"
problems, of many, experienced by pawlonias.

Adult trees that drop the ends of their limbs with great ease are showing
signs of systemic pith rot; new tissue for young limbs is being infected
through the rings, so the trees become weak-stemmed. These trees may seem
strong at the outer wood, but can snap in two high winds, at any
tissue-ring along the trunk. Anything else that grows as fast as
pooulownia will also be susceptible to blow-down, so if blow-down would
mean crushing anything someone didn't want crushed, like house or garage,
then trees that grow swifter than a foot a year are not sensible choices.
Trees that put on ten to twelve inches a year are fast enough, without
loss of structural strength. If it doesn't matter that it'll be at risk
for blow-down, then a large species of willow or a poplar will be better
choices among speed-growers because not invasive.

Young poulownias prepared for market are slathered in fungicides because
of their notorious rot problem. Often rot is already present long before
the young trees reach retail vendors; & fungicides are soaked into the
rootball as it is packed in sphagnum to ship from grower to nurseries.
Some people have the impression that young poulownias are particularly
susceptible to rot & need babying their first few years, but this
impression is due to the poor production methods that merely use
fungicides to keep the fungus from progressing much until the product can
be sold.

I suspect even if never touched by the fungus the wood would still be
brittle & susceptible to breakage in storms.

Some of the problems are no worse than for old willows or giant old
maples, so needn't be cause for complete paranoia, but rot does often
develop sooner in the heart of poulownia than for a maple because the
poulownia matures (then declines) so much more rapidly. The bigger reason
not to plant them is probably still going to be their problem as major
invasives.

Horse chestnuts, especially a cultivar like the pink-flowering hybrids,
can be a good substitute for poulownia. Walnut can be a good substitute
but walnut will not permit much to grow inside its drip-line. Locally
native species of maples & willows could also be assessed for their
possibilities, since many salix or acer natives grow very fast & would be
low-maintenance for the regions they evolved in.

-paggers

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com


----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 100,000 Newsgroups
---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---