i had a seven sons "tree" at my last place. its really a shrub, but you can easily find very inexpensive tree trained ones (from monrovia). i think i paid $30 or so for a 5 foot tall one.

they have nice peeling, light tan bark. they put on a very long flower show starting in late summer/early fall-- a double show-- white flowers followed by red calyxes.

any reason you don't want an evergreen patio tree? i am three years into an arbutus marina in an oak barrel (lots of holes for drainage). had no problems with last years winter. its dwarfing up nicely, with a nice thick trunk. mine seems to have fewer problems with fungus than neighbors.

I haven't had much experience planting evergreens. Doesn't the arbutus marina get huge? I'm quite inexperienced with trees, so when you say "dwarfing up nicely", I'm sure that means you're able to keep it smaller, but I don't really know what that means. Just pruning?

I'm certainly open to evergreens.

Thank you, Eileen

well, "dwarfing up nicely" is something i just made up.

i'll just explain how its doing: the plant is still healthy looking in the pot, hasn't grown much. trunk is getting thicker without a huge amount of top growth. the tree is growing maybe 6 inches to 12 inches a year? pretty sustainable growth for a patio tree for a few years.

also, mine has about 0 leaf spot damage. i dunno if i am just lucky- most if not all of the ones in the ground in my neighborhood have it. mine is part sun (mid day only). i give it very little supplemental water.

they want to be big trees, however, i see a lot of dwarfed healthy looking native madrones growing out of cracks in rocky hillsides. my goal is to replicate that sort of culture as long as i can. (as long as it looks healthy).

i figure i'll just craigslist it to someone if it gets too big. should give me a lot of years of enjoyment.

so yea, probably there are better trees to stick in containers. but arbutus marina is one of the most attractive trees around... worth the effort.

I have all of the above mentioned trees and they are all thriving in a shaded area. I moved the stewartia as it was miserable in full sun and has now recooped in its new location of half-day shade. The big problem is trees in pots dry out very quickly so you need a tree that will put up with that, having drought tolerance. I have a japanese maple that's quite content in a large pot.

I wouldn't recommend planting a tree with large fruit such as Arbutus 'Marina' over paving, they can be very messy with the jumbo strawberry sized fruit, dropping off over a long season. It is a beautiful tree, but messy over paving. I might be tempted to use a lacy deciduous tree such as Gleditsia triacanthos cultivars, but this may get too big for you. A flowering xChitalpa tashkentensis might be another choice. If the spot gets summer irrigation, you could consider using one of the flowering deciduous Magnolia stellata/soulangeana/loebneri trees, all of which can take full sun, don't get too big, and offer attractive summer foliage after beautiful spring blooms.

I agree about the magnolia.... the stellata stays smaller. I have a stewartia in full sun (and have had ones in other gardens in the past) and it doesn't bother them a bit. But they might get too large. Maybe an albizia might work for you.

The Lower Mainland is cooler and rainier than even Seattle in summer. But the critical factor is soil moisture, Stewartia must have a minimum amount of moisture in the soil at all times. Sun is not a problem in our area if the soil is sufficiently retentive or adequately irrigated. I have seen long-established specimens burn up and die during a hot summer in a south-bed in front of a business. Suspect they were being watered in previous years, got cut off at a particularly bad time.