Fastest growing tree in the world,Paulownia

Here i will document the growth of my Paulownia Tomentosa trees that ive planted along a sewage trench where they have lots of water and food all the time.
I grew these from seed wich are tiny and easy to germinate but hard to get them past the micro juvenile stage.
Its recorded in the Guiness book of records as the fasteat growing tree in the world and that is due to being a C4 photosinthesis tree( this is verry rare feature to find on a tree).
The wood is light about half the density of spruce but its elastic ,rot resistant wich makes it usefull for boat buildings and its also a fireproof wood.
In Japan they use this wood to make boxes in wich they keep their documents and valuable things and there are quite a few boxes like these that survived after wooden homes were completely burned.
The fire proofing qualityes of this wood come from the fact that its clean of resin and does not suport combustion well.

Stradivarius its said to have cleaned spruce wood from the resin to make it anisotropic to build his violins but he most likely had used Paulownia wich is the most anisotropic wood and those strange retepies for cleaning wood of resin could be just a mith.

It spreads by root suckers and its invasive so it needs good management.
There are trees that have grown to 40 cm thickness in just 3-4 years.
After being harvested for wood it grows back from the stump and can be harvested manny times this way.
Interesting its that the more you polard( or cut it back to the ground) this tree ,the bigger the leaves grow and can grow as big as 1 meter.
Cold hardy to zone 5.
Its an amazing tree and there are manny comercial plantations but there also seems to be manny crooks that take advantage of people,sell them seedlings at a high price promising to buy the wood and then they dissapear in a few years.

This is a video with a 7 meter tall Paulownia Tomentosa that grew in just one year from stump .From the stump it grows faster because the tree allready has well developed roots.From seed it will grow slower in the first year.

Interesting! I look forward to seeing your progress with them.

Yep I fond out about Paulownia at Arcosanti where they planted them in the gardens as shade and future lumber harvest. They work great letting the sun be blocked by the big leaves in the summer, and in the winter be open for sun to shine down and warm stuff up.


The ones I encountered at Arco were 2nd growth after growing back from stumps. The were big enough to work under and shade the garden. They were great. Arco staggered its Paulowna so some would mature, while others were just starting. That ways always having a mature crop shading the garden.

just how fire resistant is it? could it be burned in a rocket mass heater?

In our experience Paulownia being hardy to zone 5 should be taken with a grain of salt since young trees can have problems even in Z 6.

Our location is in an open low plain which gets plenty of wind in the winter which has both a chilling and a drying effect. The trees that developed well for us were the ones planted in sheltered locations.

The survivors did indeed grow impressively quickly. The idea is to cut them down to the ground the first 2-3 years and then the new trunk comes back with a vengeance and is finally allowed to keep growing (like crazy).

The wood really is quite strong and light at the same time. But for now we just use Paulownias a shade trees. When the leaves drop in the autumn, they are so large that they are not particularly carried around by the wind, instead depositing nicely at the base of the tree. So one can say that Paulownia is especially good at self-mulching.