Stump for Paulownia

“Eek, you’re showing my stump! That’s private!” the Princess wails.

“Not exactly, Princess,” I reply. “I know you’re embarrassed, but hey. This is to sate the curiosity of tree folks everywhere.”

What’s with my Paulownia tomentosa, you wonder? She liked the last blog, with a photo of her bumptious leaves, but today I’m writing about what’s underneath, and there isn’t much to admire. The photo shows her coppiced base. Three green stems at the back remain after I changed her form from a shrub to a multi-stem tree. You can see green stubs from shoots I removed this season in the foreground and upper right. The brown woody stubs are shoots cut back in previous years. Daylilies and climbing hydrangea grow around and over the stump.

“Are you done yet, you awful human? Haven’t you seen enough?” sighs the Princess.

“Oh I’m done, my pretty,” I say, respecting her need for privacy. We both know that her robust shoots and leaves will wither soon, and the stump that she decries will be her public face until next May.

2 Responses to “Stump for Paulownia”

1. Kathy from Cold Climate Gardening says:

   August 25, 2010 at 10:48 pm

   I have a catalpa tree that is self-coppicing. Keeps dying back to the ground (or almost to the ground) and resprouting. I just cut off the dead limbs, once I’m sure which ones are dead.

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2. Penny O'Sullivan says:

   August 26, 2010 at 8:53 am

   Kathy, when we first moved here, our princess tree would also die back. Since our winters our milder now, I experimented and left the stems up over the winter three years ago. They survived. Since I didn’t want the tree to reproduce, I cut it down after the next growing season.

   By the way, what are the dimensions of your coppiced catalpa leaves, and do you use the tree ornamentally?

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