3 tips for growing Golden-Rain Tree

Great for creating shade and beautiful with its pretty summer flowers, Golden-rain tree is popular choice as any yard. These tips will help you grow and care for this stunning tree with success.

With a mature size of up to 12 metres tall, and a rounded canopy of up to nine metres  wide, you can fit Golden-rain Tree into most yards easily. It makes a great lawn or patio feature where, during the first heat of the summer, the sun can catch the blooming flowers making them appear to glow.

Saplings grow slowly at first and then quickly gain size after the third year. Even a young tree displays all the features that make golden-rain tree so popular - feathery green leaves, pretty summer blooms and beautiful golden fall colours.
Its deep roots mean that it isn’t invasive so you can put it in a garden and underplant it with any perennial, annual, ground-cover, or bulb that will tolerate shade.

Golden-rain tree will grow in any type of soil as long as the site has good drainage. Follow these tips:

• Be careful as young trees can be damaged by low temperatures.
• In all but the mildest climates, plant in early spring, as trees set out in fall are more prone to cold-weather injury.
• Small, container-grown specimens are preferred to those whose roots are wrapped in burlap, because they are less likely to suffer root injury while being handled.
• When planting, take care to keep the soil ball intact and set the tree at the same depth it occupied in the nursery container.
• Water as needed to keep the soil moist the first year, but after that golden-rain trees become drought-tolerant.
• Golden-rain tree has an undeserved reputation for suffering storm damage. The branching pattern is structurally sound enough to protect the tree from wind or the weight of ice. Still, it pays to prune young trees to eliminate narrow limb crotches and remove weak or crowded branches.

After five years, it should need no pruning, and the tree seldom, if ever, has problems with pests or diseases.

There are several cultivars of the Golden-rain Tree that suit different climates. Check out this list:

• 'September' blooms later in summer and prefers temperate climates like that of British Columbia.
• 'Fastigiata' grows slowly into a narrowly upright tree, 7.5 metres tall and one metre wide.
• The ornamental ‘Chinese Flame’ can thrive in cold climates. It grows to 18 metres and has large golden flowers.

The picturesque Golden-rain Tree offers ample shade and beauty in bloom or out of bloom all year round. Follow these tips for a beautiful addition to your yard in not time.