Beginner Gardening: The royal empress tree - what is the real story?, 4 by Kibble

Kibble wrote:
I have a sterile Royal Empress tree on the side of the house and absolutely LOVE it!!
The shade in the summer is awesome!
The leaves are so heavy, however, that the branches get weighed down almost to the ground.
I live on a farm, and my chickens take advantage of the shade during the hot summer months.
I also set up my little bistro set under the tree to sip my tea/coffee and watch nature.
The Spring blossoms are amazing eye-candy.
I raise sheep so I let my sheep eat the large leaves that fall (it's very nutritious).
I also use the leaves in my compost pile since they're very high in nitrogen.
The leaves are LARGE (we're talking about a foot wide) and easily raked or picked up.
I'm online now looking to buy more of these trees because I want to put a few in every one of my pastures so my sheep can have plenty of shade during the summer and can also have plenty of these leaves to munch on as they fall.
The tree was delivered as a little twig with four leaves.
Three of the leaves fell off shortly after planting; however, within a year the tree had grown to 6 feet.
Currently, the tree is about 40-feet tall.
We get very strong winds here and have had no problem with this tree - ever.
I will try to find some pics of my tree and post them here.
Bottom line . . . I absolutely LOVE this tree!