"escape" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 09 Apr 2005 03:11:36 -0500, ceed
ceed@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqr stuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com
opined:

Hi,

One of our neighbors have a Paulownia tree in their yard. It grows
phenomenally fast (up to 6 feet per year!) and looks quite beautiful with
all it's flowers and large leaves. My neighbor loves the tree, but on-line
I find all kinds of opinions, many classifying it as a invasive weed. I do
not know what to believe, so I ask he Does anyone have experience with
Paulownia trees? Good or bad, it doesn't matter, I just want to know what
I could expect if I decided to put one of these trees in my yard.

I planted a Paulownia kawakamii three years ago. This is the first year it
bloomed. It was two feet tall when I planted it and now it's at least 25
feet
tall...which is what I wanted. As far as I can tell, the tree is a gem.
There
are other varieties which can become invasive as they spread by seed,
mostly. I
will have to report back after this year drops it's seed.

On the other hand, it is a hardwood and very reliable, renewable resource
in
spite of its rapid growth rate.



Our next door neighbor had three of these..They are huge, and get really big
leaves..They get nice green leaves in the spring along with the orchid like
flowers..The flowers are short lived and turn to mush when they fall off and
when it gets hot the leaves would shrivel up and look terrible..Maybe hers
were not well..The thing I hated about the things is the seed pods were
almost a foot long, and hard and about the diameter of a pencil..They were
impossible to keep out of our pool, and were constantly jamming the pool
sweep..Other than these things, they were pretty till they started to
wilt..And grew really fast..Guess your mileage might vary depending on where
planted and how much water(she seemed to water a lot) and whether you have a
pool nearby...But if your looking for quick shade, might be a good choice...
John