Garden Designers & Landscape Gardeners
Garden Buildings in South & East England

Paulownia tomentosa.
Above left - a medium sized tree of great character with many different attributes. The tree in this photo is probabaly over 60  or 70 yeras old and has developed an elegant shape true to the character of it's common name the 'Empress Tree', after a Dutch princess. We have grown this tree in The Church Gardens behind our black octagonal deck and in the Aromatherapy Garden, and found it to be a reliable grower and spectacular foliage plant when grown as described below. 
LEFT - Photo courtesy of Jean-Pol Grandmont
Right - one of the few trees that produce a blue flower - it does so in style with large panicles of foxglove like flowers in the palest blue, giving rise to it's other common name 'Foxglove Tree'. They appear before the leaves having lasted the whole winter on the tree as pea sized buds.
RIGHT - Photo courtesy of peregrin on flickr.com see their link on our resources page.  

Left - the leaves of this tree have as much appeal as the flower and are typically 25cm wide by about 35cm long, they can be larger on young plants and smaller on  specimens much older than this. Paulownias can be grown like herbaceous plants where the growth is cut back hard every year - at the expense of the flowers which causes the plant to grow leaves up too 1m accross in a pentagonal shape. The new growth should be cut to within 5cm of a small trunk after the leaves drop, then as the tree stars to grow only 2 or 3 buds should be allowed to develop into branches. Once the threat of frosts or other damage has passed to the delictae young shoots you may further reduce the number of branches, thereby forcing all of the tree's energy into the growth of one shoot, which can reach 4m tall and bear numerous huge leaves.
Photo courtesy of Jean-Pol Grandmont
Right - seen here in Belgium - this is the display that you sacrifice when growing Paulownia as described above, where the tree covers it's bare branches in flower. This is one of the best flowering displays we have ever seen on a Paulownia; becuase the buds are borne through the winter they sometimes are damaged and the display is compromised, or the early warmth of our springs is not suffucient to develop the buds.
Photo courtesy of peregrin on flickr.com see their link on our resources page.  

The colour of Paulownia flowers needs careful consideration when used in landscape design. Their pale colour is easily lost against a pale backdrop and in bright light, so planting them with evergreen plants as a backdrop so that dark green foliage that is present when the flowers appear in March or April is advised.
Photo courtesy of peregrin on flickr.com see their link on our resources page.