[ezeiza]

Jacaranda and Tipuana tipu are mountain trees therefore adaptable to dryish conditions.

What about Chorisia speciosa, slow but making a nice parasol. Drought resistant.

Does Albizia jilibrissin grow well in Greece? And Ailanthus? Ailanthus grows very fast.

[Alisdair]

I haven't seen Ceiba speciosa (syn. Chorisia speciosa) myself in Greece, but I'm sure there must be specimens of this fine ornamental tree there. I have seen it growing very well in hot dry parts of southern Spain, for example here in Seville:
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The petals falling on the ancient pathways of the former royal palace are a fine sight:
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Formidable spines protect the trunk:
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It grows at a reasonable pace there, and is moderately hardy - an MGS member there told me that her young trees had comfortably survived 11^oC of frost that year.

[MikeHardman]

Ceiba speciosa - I think there's one of these in the nursery on the main road in Lemba at the moment, unlabelled of course. The spines on the trunk look like pointy limpets.

[John J]

I acquired a Ceiba speciosa last winter and planted it out. It's about 1.5m and the best I can say for it so far is that it survived the summer with a good dosing of water when it began to look stressed. I'm waiting for this winter's rains (fingers crossed that we get some!) to see if it establishes and begins to grow away. The only others I can remember seeing in Cyprus have been ones of varying sizes standing, as Mike says, unlabelled and looking rather sorry for themselves in various nurseries.

[David Bracey]

It grows well in Sicily where it is a street tree............ .plus spines.

[ezeiza]

It is leafless in winter and is indifferent to winter rains. The numbers of spines seem to vary among plants. Thay can be easily hammered off (and will not "resurrect").

[HansA]

Ceiba are common trees here on Mallorca - horticulturally the pink flowering ones are called 'Ceiba speciosa' while yellow ones are called 'Ceiba insignis' (have my doubts this is botanically correct, think most are already hybrids - hope Alberto can tell something about that).
Those are newer trees here and I think most large trees which are growing on this Island were directly imported from Argentina - my own 'C. insignis' is still  small and without flowers, but very spiny.

[MikeHardman]

Hans - I like your second photo especially (I am a sucker for lovely flowers in dappled sunlight).

[ezeiza]

In Buenos Aires you have Avenida 9 de julio planted with tenths of Chorisia (now Ceiba) and flowers vary from pure white to deepest cherry red, bicolors, tricolors, splashed. Pinks, champagne, beige, cream, all yellows, reds. The most beautiful trees are those that have the shape of an elgant Chianti bottle. They must be all hybrids.

[HansA]

Thanks a lot Mike!

Many thanks for the information Alberto!

[Marilyn]

I have been reading this topic with interest, as I am looking for a similar sort of tree to insert on the edge of an exotic ornamental part of the garden, where there is some foot traffic.

Melia and Jacaranda we have here and they do well; I thought about Chorizia but they may get too big for the place.

Alessandra (Alevin on the forum) made me some good suggestions - a Callistemon viminalis or citrinus grows into a beautiful, small, gently weeping tree; and Hymenosporum flavum, the yellow frangipani, is something I have no experience with but sounds wonderful... Not sure about the drought resistance of this last, but the Callistemon I can vouch for, it is bone-hardy here in the Algarve.

I must say, though, I also love the sound of these cut-leaved Morus... definitely something to investigate!

[ezeiza]

The pendulous branches of Callistemon salignus will have to be trimmed if there is circulation. It does not grow fast enough to fill up after the rpuning.

[Marilyn]

Ezeiza, not quite sure I understand the problem? Judicious pruning should leave the tree looking like it wasn't pruned at all - following the contours created by the natural habit. Schinus molle is a good example - often pruned into a flat "curtain" here, but looks much nicer if you leave it uneven, as it grows in nature. I imagine the same effect would not be difficult to achieve with the Callistemons. And with those that are slow growing, that surely means they will stay just the way we want them, for longer? 

[Alevin]

Well, interesting but  none of my trees has ever needed to "fill up" after pruning, we prune with much restraint.  Frankly we hardly ever prune Callistemon viminalis, which was my main suggestion, even though there is a lot of traffic below; it is quite tall and does not create problems (what problems anyhow? you should see people avoiding Agaves thorns or curving under majestic Macrozamias- soft caresses of callistemon branchlets are not an issue, really). Salignus I don't really like, for the color of the flowers is a sort of blah whitish.

One of the Ceibas growing along Avenida 9 de Julio is the parent plant of the tree that grows here in our garden: in 1983 Lady Walton was going to attend a concert at the Colon Theatre, that is at the end of that avenue, and spotted a tree wih a pendulous branch and a few fruits hanging. She stopped the taxi, climbed ON TOP of its roof (wearing a grand gala gown, elegant shoes  and a hat for sure) and gathered the seed pod. Later the seeds were planted  in Ischia, and almost 30 years later, this is the result:

[MikeHardman]

Nice tale, Alevin - just the sort of thing that make our garden plants characters, not numbers in a catalogue