Reminds me of catalpa, maybe the chinese variety

YES! Thank you!!! That is what it is!

Now I can research it and see what the heck this thing and it's seed pods are going to do.

I have one c. Ovata. It is not as messy as the native because it just simply does not produce a lot of seed pods. I have no idea why not, unless they are just not being fertile. I've never checked into whether it needs another pollinator. Ergo, not many pods means it does not volunteer wantonly like the native. It does bloom, and that's all I'm interested in. They do not get as large as the native but here is what concerns me in your zone. I am zone six and it is not unusual at all for a late frost to completely denude my tree and it has to come again on leafing out. One year the leaves got zapped twice. I was concerned that it would not recover from this insult, but it did. I would be very concerned however, that a nursery would mistake this tree for a gingko. You'd have to work at that.

Thanks for the information Calliope! I hadn't run across any warnings about zone 5 concerns in my research yet, but I'll definitley bring it up to the nursery. I don't want a bare tree all summer because we definitely get some late frosts.

The bad thing is, they delievered it last year but after the leaves had fallen off. I noticed the seed pods, but I thought maybe I had gotten a female ginko (clearly I am not a tree expert).

So, I have two calls into the nursery now to figure out what to do. I really don't know if I should just keep it or not. Either tree is pretty pricey around here, for what I paid I'd prefer to have what I asked for...but it does seem like a pretty tree and it would be unique around our subdivision.

I don't know what to do now...

They do re-leaf but my tree is one of the last to leaf out anyway and if it gets zapped, it's REALLY late to leaf. They're failrly rapid growers and size up quickly, but are sort of have 'character' in their winter appearance. I have a large property, so I'm fine with trees one would not plant on a small lot as a specimen.......but the limb angles on this type of tree are not what I could call refined. I can get a shot of mine if you'd like and it would show the general configuration come ten or fifteen years down the line.

Could be a purple catalpa, leaves seem to have that color in the photo.

Photo below of a young Chinese Catalpa of mine.

{{gwi:379382}}

The Catalpa tree is a great tree. This is what you have to look forward to in May or June. The flowers have a nice sweet smell. This tree was in Madison Indiana. Driving down the river valley you could smell the flowers Catalpa, roses and honeysuckle all along the river that year.

That is awfully pretty, the thing that scares me is the 'unknown' shape of the branches in a few years.

I'm kind of a symetrical person and this guy
is right in my front yard.

Calliope, if you have a picture that would be great. I mean this one really is smack dab in the middle of my lot all on it's own. I'm not sure I want "character" in the middle of my yard :) Backyard, delightful!

I'll make a point to do that tomorrow. I like its structure, and my g'son likes it because it branches low enough to the ground, he can crawl up into the crotch of the tree and watch the goings on. It seems to be a smaller version of the native catalpas and mine is suffering somewhat because our spring has been gushing over it's springhouse in the rain, and the stream has ressurected itself and the poor catalpa and the Kentucky coffee tree near it have had wet feet along with the winter of abuse. Therefore you will see some bare branches not typical of it. If we don't find a way to divert the stream, we may lose it. ...................... OK, here's a pic I took late this afternoon. As I said, the tree had a rough time of it this winter and also is suffering from some wet feet problems now. But this is a general idea of their skeletal configuration.

This post was edited by calliope on Fri, Jun 6, 14 at 21:53