Photo By John HoffCatalpa trees have spectacular, almost orchid-like flowers in the spring. They have long, inedible, bean-like pods when make them quite a messy tree, but I would assert the flowers are so incredible that it's worth putting up with the mess.
Catalpa trees are everywhere in North Minneapolis, and it kind of makes me wonder how THAT happened. They are an unusual tree and, as far as I can tell, they don't just spring up on their own but require a deliberate effort to plant. So how did NoMi come to have so many large, mature catalpa trees? Was there a "Johnny Catalpa" who (like Johnny Appleseed) went around planting catalwa seedlings, and learning the culture of the Native Americans?
When there is some kind of odd pattern of trees, I always want to know the how and the why. For example, I'm still trying to figure out why Dinkytown near the U of M has so many gingko trees. I wrote an opinion column about it, once, but I didn't really manage to solve THAT mystery.
http://www.mndaily.com/2009/02/22/battle-dinkytown-lives
This photo of a catalpa tree was taken in the yard of Collier White, during his "Huggable North Minneapolis" event.
(Do not click "Read More")
Catalpa trees are everywhere in North Minneapolis, and it kind of makes me wonder how THAT happened. They are an unusual tree and, as far as I can tell, they don't just spring up on their own but require a deliberate effort to plant. So how did NoMi come to have so many large, mature catalpa trees? Was there a "Johnny Catalpa" who (like Johnny Appleseed) went around planting catalwa seedlings, and learning the culture of the Native Americans?
When there is some kind of odd pattern of trees, I always want to know the how and the why. For example, I'm still trying to figure out why Dinkytown near the U of M has so many gingko trees. I wrote an opinion column about it, once, but I didn't really manage to solve THAT mystery.
http://www.mndaily.com/2009/02/22/battle-dinkytown-lives
This photo of a catalpa tree was taken in the yard of Collier White, during his "Huggable North Minneapolis" event.
(Do not click "Read More")
Actually Catulpa trees do spring up on thier own. They a tree that fairly easly generates it self from seed.
ReplyDeleteThey are quite hardy and accoding to this artical they where very cheep to buy around the time North Minneapolis was growning
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1016/is_n1-2_v97/ai_9348322/