Tabebuia makes an excellent shade, lawn, or street tree, or border plant. The yellow poui develops like a tree and is the national tree of Brazil. It is a tree that grows up to 37 m in height and has large buttresses at the base of the tree. (Explanation: Buttresses are flared supporting structures found at the base of the tree trunk that provide additional support for tall trees that grow in shallow soil without a deep root system.) Yellow poui isn’t an evergreen; during the autumn it assumes a orange-yellow-red coloring. It’s leaves are oblong-lance-shaped, and mid-green in color. Dense panicles of funnel-shaped yellow flowers with 5 crimped lobes are produced.
The tree needs sun for some time at least, and it is best to position the The yellow Poui in a place where it is exposed to at least a few hours of direct sunlight. You should avoid exposure to late freezings; grow it in a covered place, locating it outside only in late spring. During the winter young plants could need a light protection from the wind or cold; and they should be provided with a high stake to keep them erect. Watering is required only from time to time, and make sure that the soil around the tree is made wet every 4-5 weeks. As the root system develops, the tree no longer needs special watering.
Young plants need extra phosphorus to encourage good root development. Look for a fertilizer that has phosphorus. Apply the recommended amount during planting or during the first growing season.
The wood of Tabebuia is used extensively in construction due to its durability. The dense heartwood is light to dark brown, is easy to dry despite its density, and is used for house posts, and bridge building. It was also used to make railway sleepers where they still made of wood.
Many species of Tabebuia species develop close associations with ant colonies, providing habitat and food for the ants that are thought to provide protection to the plants from herbivory.

The sweet gum is a large, native, aromatic tree becoming 60 to 120 feet in height, with a trunk from 2 to 4 feet in diameter. In the open it develops a very symmetric pyramidal crown, with spreading and almost horizontal branches persisting rather low on the tapering, continuous trunk. When growing in the forests, the trunks are straight and clean, with a rather small lofty crown. It has an upright pyramidal growth habit in its youth and then becomes spreading, irregular and open as it ages.
American sweetgum trees are deciduous trees, indigenous to the southeastern U.S. American sweetgum trees bear leaves shaped like stars. The leaves provide excellent fall foliage color: in some cases, at the peak of the fall foliage season, some leaves may be red, others purple, others yellow, others orange — all on the same sweetgum tree! American sweetgum trees stand up well to urban pollution and are fast-growing trees. It is in flower in May, and the seeds ripen from October to November.
American Sweetgum Trees are best grown in planting zones 5-9. The trees prefer full sun. The plant prefers light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils and requires well-drained soil. The plant prefers acid and neutral soils. It cannot grow in the shade. It requires moist soil. Young plants are susceptible to damage from late frosts.

Growing a tree from a gumball (capsule):

Gumballs turn brown with age. As they turn color on the tree, the heads pop open to disperse the seed. The gumballs can be taken from the tree safely for a few weeks before they turn color without hurting the seed. If the gumballs you collected are green, you can continue to let them dry and pop open, or try to gently pry them open yourself to access the seeds. Inside each prickly point are 1 or 2 winged seeds (usually dispersed by the wind). The entire gumball can contain as many as 50 seeds in a good year, and as few as 5 in a bad year (it runs in 3-year cycles). The amount of seeds found in the gumballs tends to correlate with how viable they are. The more seeds the ball has, the more likely it is that those seeds are of good quality.
Place the capsules on a sheet of paper in a warm place. As they open, shake the seeds out and sow them in a mixture of 1/3 of horticultural sand (coarse, washed river sand) 1/3 of a good compost and 1/3 of peat moss. Mix well and place it in a 8 inch deep tray. Spread the seeds evenly and not to crowded. Cover them with a 1/6 of an inch of the same mix and place it in a cold frame. Seeds could take up to two years to germinate. As soon as the seedlings reach around 4 inches high they should be transplanted to a pot where they should be kept until ready to be planted. Young plants should be kept in a cold frame for their first winter. As you plant them in their final place, try not to disturb the roots as you remove them from the pots. Sweet gum doesn’t like to be transplanted.

Problem: The spiny fruit pods are fairly objectionable, especially on lawns and sidewalks. The limbs drop fairly easily. This tree has a tendency to spread quickly on fertile moist sites and could become a pest if not controlled.

Apricot trees are versatile, graceful and beautiful. The foliage is attractive, and they make nice shade trees throughout the summer months. And, in the fall, as the tree prepares for the winter months, they have nice color. Apricot trees can be a lovely centerpiece in a yard: their blossoms are white or pink; their foliage is bronze in the spring, deep green in the summer, and yellow in the fall. In addition to complementing the landscape, most people grow apricot trees for their fruit, which is also versatile. It can be eaten fresh, dried for storage, made into wonderful preserves or thrown at unsuspecting targets.
Young apricot trees are likely to make excessive growth, especially trees from 2 to 5years of age. Trees making excessive growth do not mature early in the fall and are, therefore, more subject to injury from low temperatures in November and early winter. Mature apricot trees are hardier than young trees. Apricots are vigorous, fully winter-hardy trees that will eventually reach 2.5-3m (8-10ft). It is recommended that trees are grown as open bushes, as this method requires little pruning. Plant bare-root trees from autumn through to early spring, ideally in a free-draining soil. Apricots enjoy chalk but will not tolerate wet clay soils. It is best not to grow them in containers as they like a good root run.
Apricot trees are sensitive to climatic conditions and require the best possible growing sites to remain healthy and regularly productive. Apricots bloom earlier in the spring than other fruit trees and have only a limited tolerance of high summer heat. While the tree is fairly hardy (some varieties withstand winter lows down to -20° F), it can bloom too early–if you get a warm spell in late February or early March. In areas that have late frosts, you can choose some of the newer varieties developed in the North that bloom later and produce well in harsh climates. Thus, when choosing a variety, select one recommended for your zone and climate that will flower after the last spring frost in your area and that will live through your winter.
The soil must be well drained and preferably of a sandy type. Poor subsoils of any kind will result in the death or poor growth of many trees. Avoid heavy soils for apricots as such soils are likely to be poorly drained. Select a well grown one or two year old tree from the nursery. Two year old trees should have at least four of five well-spaced branches, with a good root system. The usual practice is to plant early in the spring, but planting can be completed in the fall when weather conditions are good and the soil is moist.
To plant your apricot tree dig a hole they same size as the container or a little bigger than the root spread. Ad some compost to the shoveled soil. Remove the apricot tree from the container and prune any long roots. Prune the apricot branches back so you have just two 7-inch long side branches spaced about 7 inches apart and one central stem. Place the apricot tree in the hole and spread out the apricot roots. Fill in the hole with the soil, compost mixture and add water.
Apricot trees prefer a well-drained soil with a pH of 6.0 to 7.0. If fertilizer is needed, as indicated by yellow-green leaves, then 1/4 pound of 10-10-10 fertilizer should be applied in the second year. Granular fertilizer should be scattered beneath the branches of the tree. An additional 1/4 pound should be applied for every year of age of the tree in early spring, before growth starts.

Winter protection:
If the temperature falls to below freezing, then will need to do additional protection. The southwest side of the trunk can become very warm on sunny days in late fall and winter. Night temperature frequently drops to well below freezing. This alternative freezing and thawing often injures the bark and wood. This permits wood-destroying fungi to gain entrance, and a large canker is likely to develop. Paint the trunk with a latex-based, white paint.
Fill any holes that develop in the soil at the base of the trunk. Make certain that the soil level adjacent to the trunk is slightly higher so that water will drain away from the tree. Water collecting in depressions near the trunk will form ice in late fall or winter. This ice may girdle the tree, causing death or serious injury.

Growing apricot from seed:
Apricot stones need to be stratified before they will germinate. This means taking the apricot stone directly from a ripe apricot, soaking it for 24 hours, then wrapping in damp paper towel then plastic (or in a bag of damp, sterilized sand, as is done in the nursery industry), and placing this into the refrigerator at about 4 deg. C for a period of four weeks (this cold storage would be four months for peaches and plums). This replicates what would occur in nature: The damp seed from the fruit would fall onto the wet ground and go through a cold, damp winter, which act to break the dormancy the stone retains when taken from the fruit. When conditions warm up again (when you take the stone from the refrigerator) and sow it into potting mix at about 20-25 deg. C, it will then be ready to germinate. Germination, however, could take some time as the hard seed coat makes the process of germination rather slow.

Pruning:
Because apricot trees tend to form too dense a canopy, open-center training is usually recommended. On mature trees, prune out dead, diseased, and broken branches, as well as any that cross through the tree’s center or crowd major limbs. Remove older, unproductive branches, cutting back to new branches. Because of the threat of silver leaf, pruning should be avoided during winter months when this fungus produces most of its spores. Pruning should therefore be carried out in summer, but not during wet weather, as this is the time bacterial canker will attack fresh wounds, and in severe cases plants can die.

Catalpa, also spelled Catawba, is a genus of mostly deciduous trees in the flowering plant family Bignoniaceae, native to warm temperate regions of North America, the West Indies, and eastern Asia. Catalpa is a true tree of the people, surviving in all kinds of conditions from polluted cities to windswept prairies. Native Americans utilized the Catawba long before settlers arrived in the New World. But the settlers soon recognized the value of the catalpa and carried it with them across the country. With catalpa’s ability to survive most conditions and grow rapidly, and it’s bonus of beautiful, fragrant flowers, it was the pioneers choice of trees to plant on a new homestead.
There are two recognized species of catalpa or Catawba tree in North America, Southern Catalpa, C. bignonioides, and Northern Catalpa, C. speciosa. There are only subtle differences in the two and they have both been planted far outside their natural ranges. The tree is the food plant of the Catalpa Sphinx moth, the leaves being eaten by the caterpillars. The caterpillars are an excellent live bait for fishing, particularly in the south U.S. where some dedicated anglers plant catalpa mini-orchards for their own private source of “catawba-worms”.
For fast shade in rough conditions, catalpa is a good choice. Farmers plant catalpa for the wood, which makes strong, lightweight, rot-resistant fence posts. It makes a nice specimen tree with showy flowers at a time few other trees are blooming. Fisherpersons plant Catawba because it attracts caterpillars used for bait.
Catalpas grow to 10-25 m tall and 3 ft in diameter, and can be recognized by their large heart-shaped to three-lobed leaves, showy white or yellow flowers in broad panicles, and in the autumn by their 20-50 cm long fruits which resemble a slender bean pod, containing numerous small flat seeds, each seed having two thin wings to aid wind dispersal. Because of the leaves, they are sometimes confused for Tung trees in the south U.S. The leaves grow in pairs of threes which are whorled and opposite at a node. They are 6-12″ long and 4-8″ wide. They are characterized by a dull green above, and a paler green and fuzzy underside.
The Catalpa grows best in sun and partial shade. It is very tolerant of different soil types but it prefers deep, moist, fertile soil. It can withstand wet or dry alkaline coinditions and extremely hot, dry environments. They grow quite rapidly when young. A catalpa tree in a good spot may add 2 foot of growth a year, and trees bloom young, as early as six years of age.
Growing from seed: The seeds do not need any special treatment, such as freezing. Use a shallow container that has drainage and fill it with coarse sand or seed-starting mix. The sand, or mix, should be kept evenly moist and the container should be in a place where it gets some bottom heat or at least, where it is not exposed to chilly drafts. The bottom heat can come from sitting on top of the refrigerator or similar light-heat generating appliance. The seeds may well take 4 to 8 weeks to germinate. Plant them twice the depth of their thickness. After sprouting, the seedling will grow rapidly and after it’s gotten two sets of true leaves, it can be transplanted to a four-inch pot filled with container soil mix and kept in a sunny, warm spot, or under artificial light. If you plant the seeds now, by the time they sprout and are ready to transplant, the days will be getting longer.