I think it would be just as easy to plant them in the ground. Why go to the trouble of potting them in large containers and then sinking them in the ground? Pots can sometimes hold too much water when sunk causing the roots to rot. Cutting them every spring will limit their growth sufficiently.

Just a thought-as a horticulturist and landscaper, I advise my clients to do a bit of research before they buy, not after. If you do not want a plant that grows to 60 feet, do not buy a 60 foot plant and try to keep it smaller. It doesn't work and the attempts to limit the size will only frustrate both you and the plant.

Linda

Cutting these trees back to the ground every year will of course prevent their flowering. The resulting large tropical-looking leaves won't be quite as effective in low-rainfall areas (you'd need supplemental water).

Sorry to be a downer, but Paulownia strikes me as a poor choice for your area.

I planted two and after three years, they grew to well over thirty feet. They were planted as temporary trees until slower growing trees fill out the area.

They are very drought tolerant and establish quickly. They fix nitrogen and are the closest thing that resembles jack's giant bean stalk of any plant on the planet. They are cool when they flower,with a mood-lifting lavender perfume scent. They leaf out after flowering, and have an exotic aura throughout the,summer and fall; yet are somewhat weedy looking at all times, and a little awkward in appearance when bare in the winter.

They handle drastic pruning like nothing happened. It's the one shade tree that I can say it's fine to top off to manage height and creates an umbrella of shade. They have to be pruned every year if you do this. The wood is hardwood, but contains a lot of latex-like substance; the limbs are too light to cause any significant damage if they were ever to come crashing down.

Their sole purpose for us is temporary shade, there's no way I'm going to keep them forever. As I told a friend who planted several of them on an acre lot,, they improve soil, provide excellent shade, and people tend to gawk at them like, what's that? cool! But not something you probably want to keep forever.

The wood is not brittle, which is strange, as limbs not too thick can be broken off by hand. It's almost like balsam wood, extremely ligt in weight, but is surprisingly strong for it's density.. The trimmings break down faster than any other tree I know.

Twenty feet apart sounds about right for a minimum spacing, but it's such an easy tree to trim I suppose you could plant them closer. There's little point in that, on the other hand, as it spreads out horizontally (and vertically) so quickly. It provides outstanding shade with it's large leaves.

M

This post was edited by Mackel-in-DFW on Thu, May 1, 14 at 14:24

a pot MUST have drainage...

and if the pot has holes in the bottom.. then the tree will grow out the holes.. you will accomplish nothing with this idea ..

cancel the order ...

trees grow FOREVER... it might slow down.. years after you are dead ... these will not stop at 60 feet ...

cancel the order

ken

Thanks everyone for the great comments/feedback.

It's too late to cancel the order--the trees arrived about two weeks ago. I've had them in a pot of potting soil to keep them alive while I figure out what to do with them.

They were cheap, which is much of the reason I bought them on a whim, without paying much attention to their growth habits. The other reason was that purple flowers are my favorites (along with blues and whites), so the pictures made me go "OH! Yes! I must have some of those!" :)

After reading the replies I've scratched the big subterranean pot idea.

Here's my new [tentative, very subject to change] plan: I'll have them planted where I intended, but spacing them about 10' apart. Then I'll have them pruned throughout the year to keep them smaller. And in [what passes for] winter, I'll have them chopped down to the ground.

I'm curious about something, though. Mackel noted that they are lightweight and unlikely to cause damage if a limb fell. What about planting them near the house? For shade purposes. Even though I'm back home in California now, I still think in terms of tornadoes/torrential thunderstorms from living in Dallas for years! There, trees fell all the time, crashing down on houses and doing lots of damage. It's almost unheard of here for a tree to fall, but it does happen occasionally.

The latex makes it relatively strong and flexible, the wood is very low in density, and the limbs are hollow on the inside, like bamboo. Mine are ten feet from the house, and I am positive it wouldn't kill me, even if I was standing under one, and a limb decided to fall, straight down on my head. Of course, I'm 100% of German descent. (And you know what that means.) M

It won't flower if you cut it completely down, and you'll be able to learn about it's nature, through observation, over the next few years. The immature flowers are yellow in the fall and persist through the winter, and are pretty as well. I trim once or twice a year. M

It's a little bit of work to own, but the scent of the flower is every bit as nice as the look. When they fall, they make a terrific soil amendment. One mowing and they'll disappear.. M

I'm thinking I might just leave them as be, and cut them completely down and let them grow back, as well. But you're cutting down all of those immature yellow flowers, whenever you do. So you'll have to wait two years instead of one, if that's the case. So it might be a fantastic idea, planting them ten feet apart, in order to be able to stagger major pruning. M

This post was edited by Mackel-in-DFW on Thu, May 1, 14 at 18:22

Here's an article to read when you are ready to get rid of them.

Here is a link that might be useful: controlling paulownias

Meh, mower works wonders, and will eventually exhaust the carbohydrate supply in the roots. Never had any of the few seed pods that did make it to the ground, sprout; since the seed pods look ugly, that's an integral part of the annual pruning.

If you disturb the roots, like I did as an experiment one time, you can produce a shoot. But the mower won't even make a sound, as you pass over it. M

This post was edited by Mackel-in-DFW on Thu, May 1, 14 at 19:16

Okay, I think I've got it figured out!

As before, I'll have them placed where I wanted, and they'll be about 10' apart. Once I see how they're actually going to grow, I'll have the gardeners prune them as needed to keep them within the height/width that works best. In [our not really] winter, instead of chopping them down to the ground, I'll have them cut at several feet up; how many feet up will depend on what I've observed when they're growing.

Just a side note: I'm almost tempted to donate them to a park or school or something. Somewhere with tons of room and no concerns about huge trees!

Just a side note: I'm almost tempted to donate them to a park or school or something. Somewhere with tons of room and no concerns about huge trees!

Please don't - California parks and schools don't need more non-native plants that might one day turn into a pest. What you do in your own yard is your business, but public places need more consideration.

I don't know about CA, but if you want a Paulownia here, all you have to to is:

Quit mowing.

Wait.

that might one day turn into a pest

That is my point. Not that it is non-native and the LA Arboretum has plants from all over the world. 99% of plants brought from other parts of the world have not turned into a pest.

But this plant has proven to become a pest in some parts of the US (my part for example) and it may one day be a pest there too. It has the potential.

Mimosa was first invasive in the southeastern US and now I can go to Northern California and see it popping up fairly often.

Empress trees I don't see all over here but the mimosa, they spread all along I-270 like a sign people who don't know how to clean up after themselves live here.

To tie in with the mother nature thread and not caring, to think folks plant known invasives then do not remove them when changing residences.

ilg wrote What about planting them near the house?
That idea seems to work fine here, look at the left side of pic. You can't get much closer to the house than this.
How about the lovely TOH or Ghetto Palm in the other windows?
My suggestion to the OP is to make a donation of your paulownia seedlings to the nearest compost pile.
{{gwi:324981}}

I wouldn't recommend planting anythinbg to anyone that might be invasive (I do grow bamboo, which produces non-viable seeds every fifty to one hundred years, and then dies out-- something cannot be technically "invasive", if it doesn't produce viable seed) in their location.

But the link in this thread says it's not invasive in Kali. I've never seen any wild paulownia's here, either, and the state champ is in my town. I hope I didn't mislead anyone.

I'll give another example. Italian Stone Pine is about the only pine without pest problems'/shortened lifespan that will grow in the alkaline clay soil here. It's super slow growing, and I was shocked to find out that it is invasive in some places in the world.

So all of you northerners and easterners, think about it for a minute, before you become overly apoplectic. (I would be too, if I lived where it's invasive and my neighbor planted one).

It's an extremely useful, temporary plant in poor, droughty soil. It paves the way for greater fertility, rain retiention, etc. For a couple of bucks, you potentially save a lot of money, in not having to amend the soil or having to till it to get it in great shape. It has it's utilitarian advantages, in other words, it's a great pioneer plant in the right location.. M

Japanese honeysuckle wasn't invasive for 80 years after it was introduced to the southeastern US. 80 years of people saying "it's fine, it's hasn't gone anywhere." Then suddenly it was showing up in new places at a rapid rate and hasn't stopped since.

I agree that regions have differences. But I am cautious that anything that has proven itself as invasive in places (not one place but several now) might one day become invasive in another place.

My opinion. Everyone is free to express one.

Of course I have four paulownia trees, planted before all the hoop-la about their invasiveness or the come-ons about instant woodlots to make you millions. I'm on a zone five/six cusp now considered zone six. I wasn't worried about invasiveness either..........but guess what I saw growing out of a small wooded section of my property where we let the trees just take over? Yep.........dishpan sized leaves and they can't be mistaken for anything other than paulownia. If a seed could have germinated in that section of jungle with extensive leaf litter and grown large enough to noticeable amid the other trees, I'm suggesting not to depend on a more northern latitude to save you from the reproductive capacity of this tree.

Wow. I really appreciate the thoughtful comments, observations, and suggestions. I had no idea that this particular tree could engender such strong feelings/reactions.

I'll be honest: When I'm thinking about adding something to my property, I look based on what matches my idea of being attractive [hence my attraction to the Royal Paulownia tree and its purple flowers], and what will fare well in my soil, sun, and weather conditions. I can't say that I've ever really given any thought to a plant's invasive qualities--I've basically assumed that if something was available for me to buy, it must be okay in my area. You know, like in catalogs where they say "this item cannot be shipped to CA..."

I don't intend to sell this house--it's been in my family for over four decades, and I'm not going anywhere. When I die it goes to my daughter. IF she sells it, the house and all of its trees and plants will be bulldozed by buyers who raze older, smaller houses and put up huge monstrosities in their place. They don't care about old growth, so the trees will be history then!

Oh gosh. Looks like this year's Paulownia thread has already started ;-)

ilovegardening, not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but the other problem with it for your area, is they are hardly "water wise". They come from a part of the world that has a summer monsoon, with more rain in JJA than the Eastern US. That is why they are unlikely to become invasive except in watered parts of California. (which come to think of it, is a pretty big chunk of the state...but those central valley farmers can't afford to have some useless Asian tree hogging all their water, so they'd have to cut them down if they appeared in their canals)

They are pretty trees and as for the invasiveness, I have previously lamented it's a shame someone doesn't nuke one or treat it with colchicine to induce a chromosomal change that makes it completely sterile. (In fact I think a university tried to do it a couple decades ago, and failed. Doesn't mean it can't be done.) If they were available in a sterile form, and I had a gigantic 10-100 acre property, I'd plant a hillside of them in a heartbeat. (Triploidy might even make the flowers larger and more Jacaranda-like. Of course, you're in California, so you could have just planted a Jacaranda!) There are some very pretty ones along the Susquehanna that are visible each spring to drivers as they cross the I-95 bridge.

Jacaranda trees are very pretty--and I believe I already have one in my backyard. My brother started it from a cutting of a neighbor's tree a few years ago, and right now it's about 3' tall. I'm not 100% sure that it is a Jacaranda, but I think it is.

At any rate, as I've said, I had no idea Paulownias would trigger such strong reactions. I'm pretty sure my three won't start a huge, California-wide invasion, so I'm not going to get too worried about it. But I'm glad I now know about its invasive properties, and will certainly recommend against them if anyone asks me.

I could be wrong, but your climate might be too dry for it to become invasive.

I'm pretty sure my three won't start a huge, California-wide invasion, so I'm not going to get too worried about it. But I'm glad I now know about its invasive properties, and will certainly recommend against them if anyone asks me.

So you won't be taking your own advice?

"I'm pretty sure my three won't start a huge, California-wide invasion, so I'm not going to get too worried about it. But I'm glad I now know about its invasive properties, and will certainly recommend against them if anyone asks me.

So you won't be taking your own advice?"

Correct. *I* already have the trees. People asking about them would not. So I'll tell THEM not to get them, despite my ordering them before I knew better.

I had to chuckle because yeah..........there are always the paulownia threads each year. Believe me, the reactions were very mild and subdued. Hope you have a HUGE lot, if you let them rip. They can get quite large, quite quickly and although the blooms can be beautiful, ours are not visible unless you are quite distant from them. The can also be rather messy, " an individual tree may produce 20 million or more seeds/year" according to the U.S. Forest service. Leaf drop is another fun experience. They do not turn, just brown and all drop at once.

I had to chuckle because the reactions were very mild and subdued.

"The Paulownia tree is not considered invasive in California."
https://www.inkling.com/read/new-western-garden-book-sunset-9th/l/liriodendron-tulipifera

We don't have the climate in zone 10 (at this time) to support the tree becoming invasive.

Here is a link that might be useful: Western Garden Book.

The zone 10 part of it isn't the problem. It's the lack of natural summer water in California.

Invasiveness is ALWAYS depedent on location. What is invasive in one area may very well not be in another, depending on climate, growing season, rainfall amount, winter cold, etc. There are very few plants that are considered invasive uniformly across the country. And this can be expanded to include the argument that it is "only just a matter of time". No, not necessarily :-) Some plants will simply not flourish in any given area because acceptable cultural conditions are not present for them to do so.

To my knowledge, Paulownia is not considered invasive anywhere west of the Rockies. The OP should have no concerns about any potential invasive threat in SoCal simply because the cultural conditions are not strongly to that plant's liking. These trees are fairly commonly grown here in the PNW without issue. And even if they did seed a bit, which I have never seen to occur, an argument could be made against its being invasive here, as according to fossil records, Paulownia used to grow here naturally so technically a native :-))

FWIW, many of the plant species that are considered serious invasive problems on the east coast pose little to no invasive threat on the west coast.

Hi ilovegardening, I am thinking getting a empress tree to plant it on the front side of my house. I am living in Murrieta CA. Do you know where I could get one? I also want to know how was your tree doing? Are you happy with it?