Paulownia Species, Empress Tree

Last year (2014) I ordered from an online retailer a few Paulownia Elongata and Paulownia Tomentosa seedlings. The 3 Elongata plants that...Read More I purchased all took off like a rocket and now are almost 20 feet tall. The Tomentosa seedlings struggled and have barely grown a foot and eventually I removed them. The one I have in my yard is in full sun 8+ hours and has handled 110+ plus temps just fine in Las Vegas.

My neighbor and I have struggled with these trees since we purchased them online a few years ago. We split the order between us after rea...Read Moreding that they were suitable for zone 9b. We are located in Lakeland Florida. But the trees we have (4 total) have yet to thrive. They seem to be somewhat happy early in the spring, but then start to look bad by early summer, and stay very sickly the remainder of the year. They were shipped from Missouri. Maybe that's part of the problem. The jacaranda in my yard looks great, so maybe if these princess trees don't do any better this year I will plant some more jacarandas instead.

My experience with this tree has been varied. In a mail order of ten 12" seedlings, 3 died quite young, and one died at a height of 6 fe...Read Moreet (I don't think they like nitrogen fertilizer). However, the most virorous specimen grew rapidly. Cut down to the ground in its both its first two winters, it reached over 20 feet the second season (see photo). I am now propagating this tree and have some saplings to share.

This is an amazing tree if you want quick shade or to restore damaged land, but I have had no luck growing it from seed. You can read elsewhere about its livestock feeding, honey producing and lumber providing attributes.

We purchased two of these trees from a well known online plant seller. They arrived in a long box-- such as a long stem rose box/ Just ...Read Moretwo sticks basicallly. At first we thought we were ripped off. We went ahead and gave them a chance planted them in two dixie cups... in good bagged planting soil and followed the directions of the company we bought them from. Sure enough, they started to grow.... and grow... we switched them out to a small pot, then the next month they needed a larger pot... until we had them in the largest planter pot we could barely pick up. Then we knew it was time to get them in the ground. That was nearly 5 yrs ago. These two trees are almost 35 ft tall now. We lost a hickory tree that provided a ton of shade on the SW side of our house. We searched online for the fastest growing shade tree available. We found it in the Royal Empress. The company we bought them from said these were sterile. No problem-- we just wanted them to provide shade as fast as they could. We have not been disapointed. They've produced the lavender blooms and we've noticed the leaves are starting to get smaller near the top of the trees, but they still have quite large leaves further down. We didnt cut this down to the ground the first year as we read on other posts. Maybe we should have.
We're thinking of topping them off this winter and hope they come back fuller. Right now both trees have 3 long straight up limbs from the base of the trees at about 12 feet ... then for the rest of the footage we have these 3 limbs..we're thinking of cutting those back when the trees lose their leaves for the winter. Those folks out there with experience with this tree... is there any hope for a more fuller tree if we do this?
We're reading that you can't hardly kill them.