Legacy Trees - Catalpa

We planted catalpa seeds eight years ago and had about 100 seedlings but our local rabbits took care of almost all of them. What remains are just two with one slightly bigger than the other.

The seeds came from good friends of ours from a tree on their property and unfortunately, both he and his wife passed away.

It seems fitting that the two remaining catalpa trees should be in their honor.

 

Seedling from 2013

From that seedling we now have a tree measuring 10 1/2 feet tall and 3 1/2 inches diameter (March 2021).

Catalpa, June 2021

It has hundreds of flowers this year which may produce their seed pods with thousands of seeds. If so, this would be our first legacy tree that carries on to the next generations. 

 Which is what a legacy should be.

Catalpa trees are not native to Iowa but at one time the state was encouraging the planting for their use for fence posts. Publication from 1910: The hardy Catalpa in Iowa

My father was able to get a few hundred board feet of its hardy dark wood before he passed away. My brother bought it from the estate but I'm sure I could get a few boards from him, if he still has any left.

For a little more information and a few more pictures

Get to work, planting and cutting weeds (of course)

57 seedlings planted this weekend: chestnut, red oak and a couple of catalpa. I started the catalpa from seed from a neighbor who moved to a new house last fall and I picked a few seed pods from his yard. Germination rate was about 10% and I only have about 5 seedlings that were okay and one that excelled.

Acorns have been falling for a couple of weeks and I picked some swamp white and red oak acorns from a group of trees at a college in Cedar Rapids. I get a few looks from the drivers as they pass by but no one has called security yet. I'll be stopping by a few more times over the next weeks and I'll get as many as I can before the squirrels can bury them before winter. After float testing them, I ended up with only a couple dozen good acorns.

I planted 10 white oak acorns yesterday. This makes 458 fruit trees and seedlings, 242 acorns and nuts for a total of 700 new plantings this year.

Not bad for couple of part-time conservationists and their son.

2013 Fall Planting Update

In mid-October we planted all the seedlings that David aka Sam delivered up to us. A couple of swamp white oak, a couple of catalpa and what ended up with 5 Kentucky coffeetree (a few volunteers were in the pots). The chestnut is planted in what is our new grove. I planted 5 more chestnut nuts so I think that qualifies as a grove.

The catalpa are framing the cedars as "bookends" on the west and the coffeetrees were added to the row with our showcase tree and to a couple of other rows with smaller coffeetrees. The swamp white oak were planted in the last row next to the willows.

Of course. all were caged with woven wire and chicken wire or hardware cloth to prevent the large and small vermin from doing damage.

Catalpa:

Swamp white oak:

Tree number one of the chestnut grove:

I planted 51 swamp white oak acorns up the bottom three rows using an old brass planting stick. I have 100+ planted in planters in the back yard of the homestead.

50 black oak acorns are planted in the northern three rows at the farm. Another 190 black oak acorns are in a bag of peat moss in the bottom of a fridge in the basement.

I have a couple of tubs buried in the garden that I sowed aronia seeds and planters that have paw paw seedlings and hard maple seeds that fell this fall from my neighbor's tree.

After a few more chestnuts get in the ground, I think I've just about finished with the fall planting.