With its huge heart-shaped leaves, showy spring flowers and long seed pods, the catalpa tree adds serious wow factor to any backyard. It makes a lovely shade tree for the middle of a lawn, but it can also be hard pruned and used as an eye-catching foliage shrub within the borders. Despite its exotic appearance, catalpa is not difficult to grow.
There are approximately 10 species of catalpa found naturally in East Asia, the Caribbean, and the eastern and south-eastern US. Commonly known as the Indian bean tree, catalpa is not from the Indian sub-continent, nor does it produce edible beans. The ‘Indian’ part of the name refers to Native North Americans and it has been suggested that a European botanist named the tree after the tribe of Catawba, although he spelled the name ‘catalpa’ incorrectly.
