News from the Paulownia Tree

All you can see from the ground.

The other day when Alex came to mow the orchard I suddenly noticed a tiny nest on the end of a branch of the Paulownia tree we were standing under. My friend Tim advises that it is most likely a Goldfinch nest.

I had been picking apples from a ladder,
so took the opportunity to take a closer look.

The Goldfinches certainly spend a lot of time in the Paulownia. They like the seeds and can regularly be heard scraping away at the pods. French Goldfinches are obviously a more roughty-toughty bunch than those in the UK. In the UK garden bird lovers are advised to grow Teasels and buy a special seed dispenser for a type of thistle seed called niger. This is because thin little Goldfinch beaks supposedly can't cope with sunflowers (unless you buy the shelled ones). Here in the Touraine, where all the farmers grow sunflowers, no one bothers with that palaver. The goldfinches get unshelled sunflowers on bird tables and love them.

Les boutons duveteux.

Paulownias are native to the Orient, and like many Chinese plants, have become very hardy and popular European garden additions. Our Paulownia is a large shade tree in the corner of the orchard. This year it didn't flower. The flower buds normally start forming in the autumn of the previous year and I see it is now covered in tan felt bobbles, gearing up for next spring. I guess now it has rained, and in fact, the late summer has been rather wet, so the tree is responding to the stimulus of warm weather and adequate moisture. I don't know if its failure to flower in May this year was due to the dry spring, the extremely cold December or perhaps the squirrel ate the buds. I'll have to pay more attention!

Susan

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