When the trumpet creeper blooms in June it’s the only time all year that the Catalpa tree is pleasant. It’s gnarly, dense, often twisted into overhangs with big singular three-lobed leaves. It’s bark is black and rough.
The Catalpa normally grows along rivers and was sometimes used for fence posting, and some make furniture from it, but generally it just grows. From October through April it is one of the most stark, gothic and haunting of plants especially with its pods.
It was brought into cities during the industrial age and used as an ornamental tree, although i would argue that to be true only in the summer. Nowhere have i seen more catalpas than Cleveland, where they went wild with them, and also let them grow wild.
