Google has tons of pictures that appear to me to meet your description. Many of the pictures do show it in bloom, like you mentioned, but there are also many without blooms.

Here is a link that might be useful: Paulownia tomentosa Pictures

Thanks for that brandon. I used "royal empress" as my search criteria.

Anyyays, while searching, I read from the link below that royal empress might not make it in zone 5. bummer :(

Here is a link that might be useful: Royal Empress hardiness

Guess you know it's considered invasive in many areas. Northern IL should be OK (little, if any, invasive potential) for now at least.

I'm fine with it being invasive. I've been pulling many seedlings of Silver Maple from my neighbor. LOL :D

I'm glad you said it will make it in Northern IL. I just bought 30 seeds of Paulownia tomentosa. :)

brandon, do you believe on one of the comments from daves garden I found that it looks ugly when it becomes matured?

This is what the poster said on that site:

"I have given this tree a negative because of poor appearance as a mature tree. Our Paulownia tomentosa is about 7 years old. It grew to about 30' tall in 3 years, producing instant shade, which is what we were after for our deck. However, after 3 years, it began producing seed pods - massive quantities of seed pods that hang on the tree for a long time and look bad. After it matured sufficiently to flower, the leaves it produced were smaller and the foliage became somewhat scant, making it a poor shade tree. It has matured into a genuinely ugly tree. I'm cutting it down next week."

When people say it's invasive, they don't mean like silver maples that have numerous unwanted seedlings in your own garden. They mean that the trees escape the confines of your garden and get into natural areas such as marshland and prairies. The seeds of royal empress are very very tiny and the wind carries them quite a distance.

But that aside, I would disagree that they are unattractive in maturity. Yes, you read that correctly. If they make it to maturity, they are relatively attractive compared to how they look when they're not mature which is to say they look like magic bean stalks. The leaves are very large. From what I've noticed the leaves seem to be smaller on mature trees and a little more densely foliated. They leaf out very late too which could be a good thing in a northern climate as it would miss the late freezes. The fall foliage is very unattractive though. They can grow into very large, sorta majestic-looking trees rivaling oaks that are hundreds of years old. But they do have problems. Very prone to breakage and hollows. You might as well plant a cottonwood or something if that's what you were after.

I do know of a mature one in my area that I would be happy to take a picture of for you but I don't know when I'll be by there again.

And by the way it sounds like that online review isn't really accurate. I almost wonder if they may have had a catalpa instead.

"I'm fine with it being invasive." = "I'm fine with it harming our environment."

It's not what it does in your yard (you can always mow the seedlings over or pull them), the problem is what it does to the environment. In areas where the tree is invasive, the seeds will pop up all over the neighborhood, then all over surrounding neighborhoods, etc, damaging local ecosystems as they go. Hopefully this species won't be a problem in your area, but you should certainly avoid planting invasive plants that are invasive there!!!
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Ugliness...Yes, most of the ones I see are pretty ugly and develop a poor form. The seeds (except for their invasive potential, at least around here) could be a little annoying, but not any worse than walnuts or something like that.

...the seed pods, that is.

Here is a link that might be useful: Paulownia tomentosa seed

The Missouri Botanical Garden has one that looks like a broken gangly Catalpa.

Perhaps they look better in warmer zones in sites protected from wind. Down south they displace the natives more readily as the natural predators haven't adapted to them yet.

In zone5 hopefully yours will die back to the ground every year and act like a perennial you have to cut the dead wood from constantly.

if let say it acts as a perennial, I'm just hoping that when it grows back, it will not look like a sunflower plant. :)

Well it does kinda. They look like sunflowers when they're young. If you cut it down or it dies down, boom, another sunflower shoots up before long.

I have four mature Paulownia trees on my property. The seeds are not tiny, btw. They seldom volunteer except in my vegetable garden where the pickin's are easy. I grew mine from seed. No closeups? Well, getting a close-up is hard of a mature tree because they grow so damnedable fast by the time they reach anywhere near maturity the branches are so high the only way you can get a close-up is when they fall off the tree, and they do.

And the sad part of it is....all 30 of your seeds shall probably germinate. Then they'll freeze back to the ground for two or three years until they get more mature, and then the arborist who comes every year will ask where in the world those trees just sprung from since they weren't there the year before.

Would I plant them if I had it to do all over again? Oh my no. I expect they'll cost me a few grand to take down one of these days unless they fall over first. Once every three or four years we get a floral display when the buds don't freeze. Yes, people who drive by the property ooh and aah and stop to ask what they are, but you gotta be fifty feet away to even know they're blooming. It was an experiment for me..........just had to have a few. Not one of my brighter accomplishments.

Can I ask the OP what is behind the original question? Do you want to grow a Paulownia for foliage only? Do you want one for the blossom? Do you want a tree or a 'perennial'? Perhaps if we know the reasons for the question someone can make further suggestions.

Regarding growing as perennials. Both Paulownia and Catalpa can be used to give a lush tropical feel to gardens by coppicing them and encouraging the leaves to grow extra large and exotic-looking. But they won't give you flowers treated like that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Coppicing Paulownia and other trees

Calliope,

The seeds *are* very tiny. But it could be that you're not looking at the seeds within the seeds. Visit the link below to see what I mean.

Here is a link that might be useful: paulownia t. seeds

Thanks but no gardingrandma. I know what they look like, I planted from them. And I clean thousands of the pods up when they fall from the trees (but mostly they just open and cling like brown rubbish) so I know what they look like too. This year's crop is greeny and gummy and ripening now, and next year's flower buds are setting. I think we both know the size of them, but the term 'tiny' is relative. I sometimes work with seeds the size of dust so they're not tiny to me but I'm giving you this one.......for a tree that size you'd expect a nut and I can see someone calling these tiny.

flora_uk,

I was hoping to make it look like a tree even without flowers. However, if it's going to always look like a sunflower, I will just get rid of the seeds I bought.

I have one here in SE Michigan. I enjoy it for the foliage. It is probably 25 feet tall. It doesn't die back in the winter, but the flower buds rarely survive. I think it's bloomed maybe 2 or 3 times in 15 years. This past spring it actually had a decent display, since we had our mildest winter since perhaps 1998 or 1999.

denninmi,

Can you please take a picture of it sometime this week? I would like to see how it looks like. I saw a catalpa tree with few flowers at Olbrich Gardens in Madison. I love how it looks. The nursery here is charging me $400 for a 2" caliper of Catalpa! I won't spend that much. If I can grow it from seed, I will wait.

The invasive empress weed also spreads by root suckers.

toronado, looks like denninmi's experience is different. Our zone is somewhat similar although his maybe only 5 degrees colder. Like what he/she said, he has one for 15 years and there was not any mention of it being invasive. He/she could have seen suckers but maybe, they're easy to remove.

I'm still curious about how it his/hers look at 25 ft. I'm really curious to see how a 15 yr old empress's leaves look like. That's what I am really after for.

$400 is a lot for a tree like that. the first hit from an internet search for sources of northern catalpa is the arborday site. they will sell you a 2'-3' specimen for $9.00. i am sure there are others around. you could just collect some seeds locally (with permission, of course) if you can find one in your area. if the northern catalpa grows as quickly as the southern version, it won't be long before you have a fair sized tree from seed.

Here is a link that might be useful: source for northern catalpa tree

I'm buying one later. Thanks for the link. She's really gorgeous!!! :)

Funny to see you here Neil. Looks like we're on the same track. :-)

I actually planted 2 royal empress trees back in May. One in front of my house and one in back, even after reading the negative feedback. Both are doing well! One of them actually has two main 'stems' coming from the base and the leaves are very large. They're approximately 12"-18" right now.

I did read that you should cut them back to the ground in the fall the first year, which promotes a better root system and allows them to grow larger faster.

Emily

Just to be clear, Paulownia tomentosa is invasive in IL and WV. Therefore it should not be planted.

In addition to it being invasive, plenty of threads on this forum describing the numerous problems with this plant.

Why it is even being discussed is a mystery, surely.

Dan

"I actually planted 2 royal empress trees back in May."

That's kind of like bragging that you improperly dumped toxic waste into the environment!

Keep me posted Emily. I decided not to plant it. I went with Catalpa.