DH and I spent the holiday weekend in Destin, Florida. During our trip from Tryone to Florida via interstate 85 and 65, we noticed a lot of mimosa trees along the roadways - in full bloom. We both love how they look but do not know much else about this unusual tree. Does anyone have a mimosa in their yard? Is it recommended for residential settings or does it do better in "the wild." Thanks.
Liz
Mimosa Trees
Liz,
A lot of folks consider them weed trees and invasive- but I love them. DH and I have transplanted several to our yard but none have yet attained blooming size. We both remember them from our youth- how good they smelled and all the butterflies that swarmed them. I do see them in the wild but don't see very many in residential yards/gardens anymore. There are several threads on the Tree forum discussing mimosas so you might want to check those out.
They are a hummingbird magnet if you have a large stand of them. My parents' neighbor has a large stand of them in his back yard and the tree is loaded with hummers (50 or more?) especially in the late afternoon - evening hours.
I have a volunteer in my back yard but it is in the wrong place and it may have to go unless I can transplant it. It is over 8 foot tall and that is in two years. They are fast growers but somewhat fragile and can be weedy but worthwhile if you like them.
So I guess this is not a tree that one will find for sale at a local nursery? I think we may have a very small mimosa trying to grow on the fringe of our property line - DH thinks so. Seeing 50+ hummers swarming around a mimosa must be spectacular. I wonder how these unusual trees came to be in the south?
Yes, with that many hummingbirds they can create a squawk. I had never really heard a hummingbird before that.
Mimosa (albizia) was introduced by settlers many years ago (1745 according to one web site).
It's like the paulownia tree (Empress tree introduced around 1840), the ailanthus tree (Tree of Heaven - 1784 in Philadelphia), and the scourge of the South (kudzu introduced in 1876).
i have them too in my yard and my 3 year old tree is finally blooming this year. usually when they are bout 5 feet tall. fast growers. produce tons of seeds in the fall. when i bought this house i lined the back of my property with them( one year olds)
shoot if i look hard enough i probably have babies i dont know about. also down the road on a empty lot its full of them in bloom.
i love them. so do the hummies. really easy to start from seed. just toss them on the ground and boom you have seedlings.
you can keep it trimmed to the size you want it. we had one at our last house we had to trim every year as it kept touching the cable line over head. the smell is wonderful too.
I love them, too. I think they're quite graceful looking, and I love the smell. It's a tree that even I could climb as a kid. Unless you want tons of them, it's best to site them where they are surrounded by lawn so that seedlings are taken care of. They make a mess, though, so put them pretty far from the house. Sheila
It will do fine in your yard, good looking, fast grower, not a strong tree though. In the wild they seem to like ditches and along water ways that don't have water most of the time. I mean I've never seen them growing along a river but I could be wrong. I would just get some seeds and grow a few that way.
We bought one at a local nursery 4 years ago and transplanted one from our field a couple of years later. Both are doing great in the lawn, and in bloom now. The "store bought" one is a much lighter pink than the wild one, but both are beautiful
I think that I saw a listing in a catalog for a silk tree with purple foliage. I can't remember which of the many online catalogs it was though. I drool over a lot of listings late in the night after I have wrestled the comp from my son and daughter.
Beth
I love Mimosa Trees! They're gorgeous and fragrant. I also remember climbing and building a tree house in a larger tree in my younger years - the "bark" is smooth, easier to climb; less scrapes! My mother took a few seeds from a tree growing on the side of a highway and successfully raised one. It was about 10 years old when the new landscaping company "accidentally" cut it down. It's now about a year later and there are a dozen or so new coming from the old stump. Hardly little things. If I had a nice sized yard, I would definitely include this species in my garden.
I read that the seeds are in pods? Is this correct? If so, is there a particular time of year that the seeds are ready and can be planted successfully? I spotted a tree near my house and I'm thinking of "borrowing" a few seeds - :)
Yes, seed pods like peas in a pod. Not sure how fast they ripen (turn brown) but start looking at the trees for maturing seed pods so you can grab a few pods before they release all their seeds. Being in full bloom right now, I would imagine seed pods are probably appearing on lots of trees.
Very beautiful tree. Blossoms always smelled like peach candy to me. We have them everywhere down here: on the sides of roads, in parks, on the sides of highways. You can usually find seedling under the larger trees if the bramble isn't too thick.
Only problem I have with them is that after the flowers have finished blooming, they create an awful mess. I used to get them on my car and the house and even in this heat, they'd rot more than dry up...so it became a sticky situation at times.
In Birminghan the mimosa and gardenia bloomed at the same time in my yard. To me, the combined evening fragrance was the epitome of everything a southern summer should be. A friend from Mississippi commented that her combined southern evening fragrance was Estee Lauder's Youth Dew and cotton poison.
Beth
our home depot had a chocolate mimosa, it looks the same but a really dark brown leaf. has anyone ever grown/seen that one? i almost bought it but thought i should look it up first.
I love Mimosas, even though they are considered an invasive species in GA. I have several in my front yard, one that provides a beautiful backdrop for my lilies at the edge of a wooded area. It's right next to a weeping willow, so the textures are interesting. The fragrance is heavenly! I have little "volunteers" all over the wooded area, and just had to remove a rather strangely shaped straggler hanging over a ditch. They are not very strong, so they tend to bend and break with strong storms and ice. But they will grow anywhere. I saw some seeds for sale on eBay a while back. Not sure how quickly they would germinate, but if you want a seedling or two, I'm sure I can "dig" some up for you!
Oh, and yes, they do seem to attract hummers. Which reminds me of an UNBELIEVABLE site I saw just this am on the way to Atlanta. Only in GA would you see hummingbirds happily humming along the median of I-20. Made my day! (Doesn't take much to make me happy.) A pretty flower, a little bird, I'm soooo easy.
I had no idea they were considered an "invasive species" in Ga.
Hi berrygirl - yup, who woulda thunk? They've been around as long as I can remember, and they're pretty and smell good; how bad can they be? But, according to the UGA extension horticulturists and all those smart people, and I quote;"Mimosa, although quite pretty, is a category 1 plant, meaning that it has serious impact on native environments in Georgia and displaces native plant species over a wide area. Other category 1 plants include Chinese privet, multiflora rose, Japanese climbing fern, Chinese tallow tree, autumn olive, Japanese honeysuckle and kudzu."
I still love it.
Here's an interesting anecdote about mimosa. When I was a kid my family would always go back to middle TN for summer vacation to see my grandmother (if my dad was stationed stateside) and that was over 40+ years ago. My grandmother always had mimosas about her yard. My sisters and I would always plant seeds of it before we left and the next summer when we came back we swore that the 6 foot mimosas were the ones we planted the year before.
Anyway it seems to be on both sides of the roads almost everywhere you go nowadays including paulownia, ailanthus, kudzu, honeysuckle, elaganeus, and sweet autumn clematis.
Have you ever smelled kudzu in bloom? It smells like grape bubble gum but it is the scourge of the South.
Very intoxicating. Nothing like going through a forest full of wisteria in bloom. You're holding your breath at the end because it is so powerful.
I live close to Destin where you were on vacation and I can tell you they are a pest down here. Once the birds start getting into those seed pods they will be spreading everywhere.