Despite its indiference paulownia is a living creature. It requires care and love. In this article we shall describe the basic points in the process of planting this amazing tree and shall try monthly to inset with facts and pictures the procedures you have to do to your plants.
We want to note our great satisfaction from planting paulownia. The more you care for them, the more better they grow. It is a pleasure to watch how young paulownia tree grows as high column for several months. The pictures below show paulownia growthfor a year. The heigth of paulownia at the second picture is 5,20 m.
1.Whether planted in autumn or in spring, paulownia saplings start their growing period in the middle of April to the early May. Certainly the temperature plays a pivotal role. It is possible the young trees to put sprout prematurely for early warming. When frost or cold snap it is possible to freeze. Paulownia overcomes freeze putting new sprouts. This process simply slows the groth but don't kill them.
2. After passing the dangerous time when they may freeze, from every of the last and lower buds grow usually two sprouts. Let them grow to about 10 cm and snap off the weaker one. This is how you form the future stem of the tree. The procedure is extremely important if you plant paulownia for wood. If you let the sprouts grow, paulownia becomes a bush.
3. Here comes the most fragile and difficult phase for the tree. It is still young but the grass grows and if not removed (manually in general) it may suppress paulownia grow or even suffoacte it. You can fight grasses by herbicides, but deciduous species need to be removed manually. It is good to hoe the young trees about 30-40 cm in radius.
4.This time carries also the biggest risk of attack by pests. We saw Cabbage Moth (Mamestra brassicae) and slight attack of greenhouse whitefly (Trialeurodes vaporariorum Westw.) on our plants. Fighting them is not expensive. We have to treat paulownia three times in the early phase of their growth. When the trees grew up above 1 m, they start growing with 5-10 cm a day and the bugs couldn't harm them at all. We have seen no disease in our paulownia over the past year.
5. Removing outgrowths is a process of wringing the protruding side branchesе. This must be done in order to grow straight trunk without branches to the 8th meter at least. The lack of branches guarantee quality wood without nodules enev to the point where they 've been removed. You must be careful not to break leaves as they are still green because this remains sores in the trunk. This may be done about 5 times depending on the type paulownia you plant.
Keeping those important rules correctly shall make you a proud owner of high upright trees. Obviously the more efforts you made in the first year, the better results you will achieve in the next years.
