Nice to know you won't trade with me because of Beachplant, even though I had settled that, and now have a great following here. You can look elsewhere for these seeds then. Thank you.

The next swap is May 20th. The link below will give you all the information you might need. http://www.midtnplantswap.com/ I know they can be pretty invasive, but at least for a while I plan on pruning the seed pods off before they can ripen. My wife really liked the one that sprang up at her mom's house. Her dad keeps cutting the top out of it so it hasn't ever bloomed, much less spread. I see a lot of people using them in new landscaping to provide quick shade trees.

Don't plant a Magnolia if you're worried about mess. Someone planted one 50 years ago next to our pool. It is absolutely beautiful and give great shade to the south side of the house, BUT it is very, very messy. The large leaves drop all year, heaviest in the spring, and they take years to decompose. In the summer the beautiful flowers drop bud sheaths and then petals. Later in fall, heavy cones drop and bring tons of squirrels who pull them apart after the seeds and leave a mess everywhere. Plus the cones are kinda spiky, painful if you accidentally step on one, plus a tripping hazard. So yes, a beautiful majestic tree...for the outer edges of a property, not near a patio. You have been warned, lol. The Africarpus gracilior is a pretty good choice, they do get huge with age, but are fast and pretty clean, and handle heat and soil compaction well. Josue Diaz's suggestion of Brachychiton populneus is a good choice too, lovely tree, too tender for where I am, but should do great for you. Stan's suggestion of a Tristaniopsis laurina is a good one too, but pretty slow growing. If you want shade soon, I'd get the largest one you can find. It will be expensive, but save you several years waiting. I love Ficus microcarpa (Indian Laurel)! Beautiful tree, gorgeous white smooth trunk! I just got back from visiting my daughter in San Luis Obispo and the downtown streets are lined with them and they're very majestic. Do be aware that they can get very large buttress roots with age, but if you give them lots of root room near the patio, but not right next to or in the patio, they should be fine.

o, thank you floral for this post. I'm grateful to the others, too, but it's pretty clear that they are all Paulownia-dislikers from the start. Now, I have many C. siliquastrums-what a beautiful tree!-but part of the motivation for my wanting a P. is it's speedy growth,and the fact that it can get very tall. See, one of the probs with my site is that effing south-western sun, that is just too ferocious in July and August; I honestly am not too sure that the roses would object all that much to the shade. AND , remember, the land slopes sharply down towards the south-west as well, so that blistering sun is frying my garden up until about 7:30 PM in summer. Placing a tall tree strategically could actually block the sun by blocking out part of the actual sky, if you get what I mean. I have some mature oaks that do just that in part of the garden, but they are placed at the bottom of the slope and are growing too far off to the western side to be of help to the central garden. I don't think a cercis could get that tall,and they don't grow all that quickly. The other thing about the morphology of my land is that,with the sharp slope, I think it is quite possible that the morning/early afternoon sun would still hit the roses; the shade would arrive once the sun was pretty high in the sky. I guess I'm also thinking that I could play with things a bit; prune the tree so it'd sort of grow like a tilted beach umbrella, with most of it's canopy oriented to the south-west. My mature oaks actually do tend to grow sort of like that anyway (growing towards the dominant sun) Actually, if I could be sure of it's hardiness, I probably would go for a jacaranda, but I'm afraid it might be just a bit too cold for them here. The other thing abou paulownia that tempts me is sort of ..it's vices! Since it does self-sow easily, if I find that my idea does not work and the mother tree provides too much shade, I can girdle the mother tree and get rid of it and save a seedling for planting elsewhere, if I so desire. Since they grow so fast it won't be the loss of a huge investment of time and labour. The idea of the debris it provides is welcome to my organic-matter-hungry land. Hearing that it blooms in April is not the best of news,since from the pictures I see on Internet when it is in bloom it provides only very dappled shade; coupled with the open. graceful habit of a mature tree that would be perfect for the roses. However, I did find a blog or some such http://www.siteandinsight.com/tag/paulownia/    ; this lady writes about seeing them in flower in the area of Ferrara in May. Perhaps the ones in London bloom earlier because they are in the shelter of buildings, etc. In any case ,my land is very open, out in the woods,at about 600 meters above sea level; my roses bloom well after the ones in the city of Prato have started, so a paulownia might bloom later for me as well. But as I said before, if the idea does not work out as I hope,I'm not so sure it'd be such a big problem or loss to remediate it.