There are 5 Catalpas in my garden and 3 of the larger ones produced a huge amout of beans last year. Can someone please advise when the correct time is to prune them (and remove the beans) please?
I wouldn't prune unless you need to, I think it would stop flowering this year to some extent, depending on how hard you intend to prune. You could always just cut off the beans if you want to tidy them up. I have one that I cut back severely every year reducing the last seasons growth to a couple of buds. This way I get massive leaves the following year but no flowers. I need to restrict mine as I dont really have enough space, but if you can let them just grow naurally I'm pretty sure you will get more flowers.
Thanks Pete. It's my first year in this house so I wasn't sure how to care for them. I've trimmed all the beans off now and they look much tidier. They flowered well and the leaves looked really beautiful last year so I'm hoping they'll do as well this year.
Tweezers I wouldn't prune them either if you want flowers. They are a very brittle tree and given our strong winds you will find they get pruned naturally. Good idea to tidy up old or new wind breakages with the secateurs. I am like pete and go large leaf and tropical with some of mine but others I never trim. Post some pics, they are my almost favorite tree. A couple of mine... My Standard... My untouched... They seems extremely popular in Europe. I saw loads in bilbao, lining the streets.
I love them. Yours are very thick and lush. Mine are fairly young I think, not so thick yet. Three of them are about 12 foot tall (the ones that produced beans ) but the other 2 are only about 6ft and 8ft tall.
