PS They also sell snake oil!

I find the wording interesting: "sterile and non-invasive when brought into a new area." Only when brought into a new area?

Paulownia is self-fertile, but there are some lab culture techniques that have been used to propagate some other plant species so that the clones are male-sterile (I don't know if this has been accomplished reliably with Paulownia). That would be an effective way of keeping them from producing seed, if and only if there are no other Paulownia trees around that have fertile male flower parts.

But that's just my speculation, because that site is a bit thrifty with the details on this propagation technique, and the putative non-invasiveness.

This nursery is selling Paulownia elongata, P. fortunei, and P. kawakamii, 4-9" plants @ $19.95 reproduced by TC.
I don't see any claim of sterility on the website. The main grievance that many have with the P. tomentosa is that it produces seed and comes up everywhere. If this grower does in fact have TC clones which do not produce seed this would be a major selling point. If there is no claim of sterility made, she cannot be held accountable for it.
How winter-hardy are the flower buds? Why is there an assumption that 25-30' of growth in 3 years is desirable?
Who is growing these species for timber production? Who is buying it? Gransfun, if you are a stickler for facts give us some independent links.
Sam

Can someone tell me what is beautiful about this tree, it is the most hideous thing. Looks like a bean stalk x corn plant on 'roids mixed with rabbit chromosomes.

Beyond all the above, Paulownia is a rapid-growing, weak-wooded tree which drops branches in the wind.

Further, because the flower buds are present through the winter, they may be frost-damaged and/or killed.

Thanks for the information, but i am hesitant to take anything from a company with the same name as the tree they are promoting as being unbiased. Can you please give some independent sources as well?

Gransfun, I think you really really want a paulowina, so you should probably get one and make yourself happy!

Last I knew, which WAS a few years ago, the man who had been buying Paulownia logs for timber in this area had stopped buying them - the market in the Far East had disappeared, or prices had dropped too far. My info is second-hand, so I may be wrong. I don't think there is a market for it, specifically, as a fine timber tree in the US. As a pulp tree, or as a wood-chip tree, then probably you could sell them.

While paulownia is a valued wood in antique Chinese furniture, and is quite lovely in the examples I saw while living in San Francisco, my understanding is that the wood was from "old growth' forests, not from rapidly-grown, modern wood - we ARE talking about antiques here.

I have a feeling that the caveats expressed above are valid - this particular tree would be sterile IF there were no other Paulownia trees near-by. After all, when the dreaded Bradford pear was first grown, it was though to be sterile. It turned out to be self-sterile, but quite compatible with other ornamental pear cultivars - hence the forests of Bradford pears springing up!

Good point Dibbit.

Yes, these would be non-invasive (so far) simply by virtue of being species other than P. tomentosa.

Seeing as how the stems are hollow, a fairly small tree could make one interesting bong. Not that I'm into that stuff or anything.

What a dope-y comment.

There are a few local arboretums that treat paulownia as a cut back shrub. They cut the paulownia back to the ground every year, it shoots up to 30' in one season, with enormous leaves. Treating it this way means it never flowers (they don't flower on new wood) - so cannot reproduce by seed. The foliage on these new, annual shoots is much larger than it would be on a tree allowed to grow normally.

It produces an interesting accent in the garden, but does create a responsibility for the gardener to be sure to cut it all the way back every year.

Today I saw one popping up out of a rockery at a nearby business. So far this seems to be the main source of local "infestations", I have never seen spontaneous empress trees in any other non-irrigated places here except other rockeries (dry stone walls). A patch of seedlings, surely from my trees (I have three species) appeared awhile back in the yard across the street, but they water liberally.

I think P.t. is a very beautiful tree, and here in the Pacific Northwest we haven't had problems with it spreading.
And on the west side of the Cascades, we usually don't get cold enough to freeze the flower buds off. I haven't seen the other species in flower but have heard that they are as colorful or more so than P. tomentosa. As for their leaves being big and unattractive, I don't feel they are any more or less than our native big leaf maple, Acer macrophyllum.
I like to create a tropical looking garden and cutting P. tomentosa back each year gives me a plant that is tropical looking with leaves two feet or more in diameter. These leaves are very popular with people making concrete cast of leaves, along with Gunnera and Tetrapanax papyrifera 'Steroidal Giant' other large leaf plants.

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Buds do freeze here, in fact the inflorescence to the left in your top photo shows what appears to be an example of it - that is the same appearance produced anyway, a portion of the inflorescence only opening, the rest of the buds having frozen and died.

bboy,

You are right, as I said, "we usually don't get cold enough to freeze the flower buds off." That picture was taken this spring after going through two cold periods, one right after Thanksgiving and other in January. The January one was cold for most of the month with temperatures barely getting above freezing for most of the month. We also had four nights of 15º F temperatures with it not getting above freezing during the day. The second picture is from a tree at the University of Washington's Arboretum after a mild winter. That tree this summer didn't look as good after going through last winters temperatures.

John