My wife and I were driving from North Carolina to Georgia recently. As we passed through the NC mountains, we noticed that the back roads were lined by trees that had large light purple/lavender blooms that looked kind of like wisteria. We were not aware of wisteria *trees* in that part of the country. We love the dogwoods by the roads where we live, but were entranced by these trees. Could anybody from that part of the country tell us what is blooming up there?
billo
Jacarandas?
Boy, that looks a lot like it. But... from my Googling, Jacarandas are zone 9-10 plants, which is a little warm for growing wild in the Smoky Mountains.
billo
Every year when it blooms there is a flood of inquiries about this weed tree.
Princess Tree (Paulownia tomentosa)
Its an escape from China.
Jacarandas are not hardy in the Carolinas, n*****ts.
Sounds like Paulownia tomentosa. The only other candidate that comes to mind would be the Robinia x hispid or neomexicana and cultivars...but you'd never see them en masse in the hills. Planted landscapes only.
Thanks for the suggestion, but no -- we have redbuds all over the place where we live, so I know what those look like.
billo
That's it. Thanks. A quick Google on it comes up with repeated statements that it is not an appropriate tree for landscaping, but the sites weren't clear on why. It sure is pretty when it blooms, and I don't have a problem with big leaves. What's the down side?
billo
The down side is that the large seed pods are full of a multitude of minute winged seeds that get carried by the wind and plantlets will pop up everywhere in the garden and elsewhere they were not invited. Being a weed is bad enough but a weedy tree that overpowers native shrubs and trees is a far worse threat. Only the so-called "Tree of Heaven" has been more destructive.
I think it's the Poulownia. I Googled on Robinia, though, and it is a pretty plant -- I am looking for something showy and generally that color to line a long driveway and separate microenvironments in a large yard. I just bought a house on 5 acres on a hill that is divided equally between a poorly maintained lawn and uncleared brush/forest. I'm planning on breaking the land into small microenvironments separated by high borders with one fairly large but manageable lawn. Thus I'm looking for interesting plants to form high barriers along the major paths.
As I noted in a different post, most of the sites seemed to frown on using Paulownia in landscaping, though I am not sure why. The Robinia looked nice -- and as a tall shrub rather than tree I'm wondering if it can be formed into a decent hedge. Do you know?
billo
Hi Bill,
Note the tree's habit-- incredibly open and rangy. Looks terrible in winter. It can also, under the right growing conditions, reach an alarming height quickly. Basically, it looks good for about 3 weeks out of 52.
Dave
I seem to be coming late to this discussion Bill, but if I read it correctly, you're looking for a suitable alle tree for a long drive. Certainly, Pawlonia and Robinia are both right out-- they're pioneer species both that have weak wood and are rather ungainly with age. Having said that. I hdo have several large Robinia on my property-- they're not without charm, and in bloom are lovely in their own way-- the mature bark is also very attractive, ropey and muscular. You *will* have large branches and trunks shedding from time to time, however, as it's the nature of this tree to slough off weakened, aged, or damaged wood.
Classic choices for an alle include:
Golden Chain Tree, Laburnum x watereri:
Zelkova serrata, especially 'Vaseyi'.
Live Oak, Quercus virginiana
Many of the Red Oaks
You can also think about evergreens or conifers, which would produce quite a different effect.
Dave
The Princess tree is invasive, invasive, invasive. I recently heard that each of the little capsules (and each flower head probably has 50+ capsules when it goes to seed) has more than 2,000 seeds in it.
If it gets started on your property, it's hard to kill since just the seedlings are difficult to pull out, they sprout right back if you cut them down, etc.
I don't remember if you said where you were located but you might want to consider crepe myrtles. They are quite showy in bloom and in time, the trunk and branches have lots of winter interest.
Could it have been some type of Vitex? These grow mostly in moist and shaded areas in the Southeast, along rivers and streams. There are about 16 types (from what I can find out about them) and range from bush size to tree size with clusters of fruits (berries?) that sort of resemble pecans. Sometimes the flowers are white. Smell great. Common name is Lilac Chaste Tree.
Kim
Thanks for the advice. Yes, I am looking for something to line a driveway, but am also looking for creative ways of making relatively high sight borders to separate small areas of the yard. Basically, this place I recently bought is on a knob on the side of a hill and has about 5 acres of land. There is about 2 acres of *relatively* flat land, with the land behind the house angling slightly up, and the land in the front falling off into a small ravine that separates my land from the next door neighbor. A good part of the front is cleared, with a poorly-kept lawn. The rest is in brush and forest, with the brush so thick it is impossible to walk through.
The interesting thing I have seen so far with the property is that there are lots of little microenvironments that are very different because of light, drainage, slope, etc.:
The area behind the house has a lot of large old oaks, poplar, dogwood, and some other trees I haven't identified (I'm fairly new at this--my background is in microbiology and medicine, not botany). It is very shaded, relatively cool and moist, and has abundant natural ferns and delicate natural plants with fairly subtle flowers that I also haven't identified. It's biggest problem is that it is getting overgrown with english ivy and has a *lot* of poison ivy -- which is not a big problem for me, but my wife reacts to it.
The area in front of the house is cleared except for a couple of large old trees that are not oaks, but I'm not sure what they are, yet. They are around 60 ft tall and very gnarled. The trunks are about 6 ft in diameter. It is the dome of this little knob, and is thus very well drained and tends to be hot and dry compared with the rest of the yard. Part is in the drainage field of the septic tank, which provides slightly different growth.
As one goes more towards the ravine, and gets into the brush, there's a lot of shade growth, but it is clearly a lot drier than the area behind the house. Lots of morning glories, wild strawberry, wild blackberry and such except where overtaken by dense woody brush. Lots of redbud, dogwood, magnolia, oak, pine, and things I don't know. The trees are awfully crowded, and many are clearly not healthy. Lots of dead wood; the previous owner must have dumped the logs from clearing the open area in the brush around the house. The brush is a significant habitat
-- with wild turkey, numerous birds, deer, raccoon, etc.
Continuing on down the ravine (which is *fairly* gentle), it starts to get darker and moister again.
Finally, there was apparently a house built here in the mid 1800s that was bulldozed and replaced by the original owner of the current house. Scattered throughout the yard are the remnants of the original hardscape -- parts of old fieldstone/flagstone retaining walls and raised beds, ruined ornaments (I cut my way down the ravine one day and ran across a stone sculpted birdbath covered with poision ivy), a partially ruined hand-dug well with brick wall, etc. Some need to be removed, and I am getting the well cleaned out and reinforced, but some are attractive as ruins.
So, I plan to separate the yard and deal with each of the microenvironments individually. I plan to put a shade/fern garden in the back, break up the front lawn with different ground covers, do a little terracing, etc. and connect the areas with footpaths. I would like to have significant semi-formal sight borders between the areas. I also want to maintain enough brush (preferably controlled, such as in these larger borders) to provide habitat and cover for the critters that are there now. I figure that having multiple small protected areas as mini-gardens would be more conducive to critters than a large open area. I have read, for instance, that it is better to build borders by weaving limbs back into the border rather than pruning them in order to create areas that birds like to nest in...
The other reason I plan to do it this way is that this is all fairly new to me (my last yard was 0.25 acres), and concentrating on small areas is more manageable and provides better learning that trying to deal with everything all at once.
Finding trees to line the driveway isn't the big problem. The problem I am concentrating on is figuring out the right kind of thing to build the borders with, the right trees and hardscape to use as accents in and along the borders, and how to plan the small areas and paths to provide good visual effect.
I plan to be working incrementally on this for some years, and will obviously be re-doing a lot of things as I learn, but some of this early planning, particularly with the positioning of the paths and the planting of the borders and trees, are things I will want to stick with for some time. I want to plan it well.
billo
Yes, crepe myrtles are popular here. I plan to have a few!
billo
Bill,
I'm prinnting your description out and will answer when I can. I'm a Landscape Architect, I'd be happy to comsult with you on this if you'd like-- I love the residual elements from the historic owners of the space-- priceless stuff.
Dave
Lots of similarities between our situations Bill, right down to the spouse who is reactive to poison ivy and the background in biology (mine's molec. genetics, actually) and medicine. Of course, your yard sounds a whole lot more interesting than mine, especially with the interesting ruins. Perhaps you can learn from some of my experiences, especially the mistakes.
Brush clearing is a slow, difficult, and painstaking process, unless you enlist help. Every year, I go around and start cutting down the stuff closest to the clearing. If you can get a mower in there at that point, it is easy to maintain control. Otherwise, it becomes an ongoing battle. The one exception to this approach has been what I've done with the vines that were strangling the trees. Some of these things were a good 50 or 60 ft. tall with trunks as big around as my arm, and they had to go so the trees could be salvaged. Although I am not a big fan of herbicides, I've resorted to them, in order to keep the vines from regrowing as if nothing has happened. After 4 years of doing this, it still looks like a jungle in there, but it is becoming more passable. Unless you are really handy with the chainsaw, get someone to come in and take out the dead/diseased trees. You'll have a better sense of how much space you're dealing with.
Although I have approached gardening on this property in a piecemeal fashion, my one regret is that I didn't get around to putting in the backbones (trees and shrubs) sooner. I am just now getting to it, after
4 years of being here and of course, doing this while brood X is about to emerge may not be the smartest idea. I am holding out on some of the major ornamental trees, and probably won't plant them until after the cicadas are gone, or maybe next year. Although the brush you have is supporting a lot of wildlife, you can add ornamental shrubs that will also be able to support them, and won't attempt to run away with the property. Have a master plan in mind, and work towards putting in all the high impact elements first. Your plan will most likely evolve, but if your initial choices are well researched, you will still be able to work with/around them.Take time to do things right. Amend the soil if you have to, for your perennial beds (if any). It may mean that you won't do much by the way of planting this year, but you won't regret it later.
Good luck, Suja
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