Beegood I am happy to see you are having success with the catalpa tree . I've wanted to grow one here but was told it was very marginal zone wise. Good luck and keep us posted wiith your results.
Lois

I think it may be marginal here too but am willing to give a try. Will see next spring and hopefully have good news.

I have one that i started from seed a few years ago. I thought it was a goner in the spring but it eventually put out some new growth and is now about 3' high. No pods on it, though. It gets plenty of snowcover in the winter, which helps, i think, but the spring was pretty brutal.

Marciaz3- where did you get your seeds from and where they hard to germinate? When did you plant it outside. This is exciting to me as you're in my area.
Beegoodhow old is your tree?
Lois

I got the seeds in a trade, but i'm not sure who it was who sent them. Maybe if you asked on the Exchange Forum, someone there could help you. I winter-sowed mine, so they were outside right from the start. Two grew. I had them in containers for two summers - sunk them in the ground for the winter. One died and the other survived the second summer, so i planted it in the fall. I do heap leaves around it in the fall, and, as i said, it gets covered in snow in the winter, so it's protected well enough. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will survive to maturity. :)

My Catalpa was only planted this year but it is about 6-7 ft tall. Had loads of seed pods but I think they froze. It is a Chinese Catalpa which are supposed to be very hardy for this area. Will mulch in the base real good and hope for the best.It grew very fast .

Sounds great both of you. Will have to try to find some seed. Please keep me posted in the spring with you're results- keep my fingers x Lois

Celtic-07 = I'm going to collect some seeds from the roadside and try to start them. There's a farm about 1/2 mile up the road and there are several catalpa trees growing in the bush just past it. The branches are hanging over the fence so I shouldn't have any problem reaching them.

Marric If you get some extra seeds I'd love to try to start some. I will e-mail you with my email address..
Thanks Lois

I have several Catalpa speciosa started from seeds I got from Gardens North. I also had some seedlings of Catalpa ovata but they did not take.
My trees (about 4) are now about 3 ft tall and a couple are double stemmed. IT will be interesting to see if they will make the winter. I am thinking they will freeze back on top and just keep growing from the base as a a new trunk each year....or they will die or ?
Good luck.

Clayton

Summer before last, mine was just a stick after the winter but then a couple of branches sprouted. This year, it was the same thing, but it sprouted a crown of branches from the top. I'm going to try to put some extra protection around the base of it this year to see if that helps it in spring.