Welcome to Garden Web. I thought you might like to know there is no email link on your member page, thus no way to email you. To set up your email, just go to the bottom on any page here, and click on Member Pages Then click on Edit your Personal Information, Page, and Preferences You will then probably be asked to login in again. Then check the box Allow other users to send you email via forms at our site. That will place a link on your member page. Happy Gardening and trading. Sue

Ha ha ha ha!!! My empress trees are growing like crazy now! I cut nicks off the top of the still bald catalpas and it's green under there so who knows...I hear they don't come back until May. Here's the funny: I was telling my Mom today that my plan is to have these container trees then put vines and stuff in them; well she just sees these cut back stalks (and doesn't know what we all know know about this) so she didn't think I was going to have trees in my containers, then she didn't think the empress trees would grow here. HA! From the time I showed them to her to the time we got back from dinner they had grown. She then remarked that I could probably sit right there and watch them grow. Probably. You know what though, out of 200+ seeds, only 7 came up. Luckily. I also planted some okra seeds in there and they sprouted in 24 hours. The containers are full of that $2 a bag cow manure they sell at walmart. Maybe it's even $1 a bag, whatever. I anticipate wild growth this year! And with the empress trees in a pot I can cut them back ea year right? We are having a good spring here in FL so far.

Different crown structure, flower structure and flowering times. Northern is tall growing with smaller heads of bigger flowers earlier in the summer (June); in bloom the heads are bunchy enough for it to look kind of like a rhododendron, from some distance. Southern is broad growing with large and open, branching heads of smaller flowers still being out much farther along in summer.

Since we are discussing the Catalpa tree, I have to mention that here in Raleigh at the J C Raulston Arboretum, there is a hybrid of it with the desert willow, Chilopsis linearis from the American southwest. This hybrid is called xChitalpa tashkentensis 'Morning Cloud' and it has very pretty white flowers with a pale pink throat. Because it is a hybrid, the flowers do not develop into seed pods. Because its other parent is adapted to desert conditions, this tree is more able to tolerate drought and in fact cannot tolerate wet conditions. The leaves on both it and the Catalpas at the Arboretum get completely eaten several times during the summer by the Catalpa Spinx moth (fishing bait) caterpillars, but seem unfazed by the experience. Even though both parents are native American species, the first successful hybrids were made in the Republic of Kazakstan, thus the species name tashkentensis