Chitalpa tashkentensis

Chitalpa tashkentensis, also known as the Chitalpa of Tashkent, is a large deciduous shrub or small tree with fast growth, with a more or less spreading and bushy habit. It produces beautiful terminal clusters in summer, conical in shape, carrying pale pink tubular flowers with yellow striped throats, fragrant and honey-bearing. Adorned with olive green, ovate and pointed foliage, this hybrid variety has a charm from elsewhere but also shows a sweet rural face, which does not leave one indifferent. This shrub with a generous habit deserves a prominent place in the garden, in ordinary but well-drained soil. It is also interesting as a flowering hedge or as a solitary plant, to shade the terrace with lightness.

Chitalpa tashkentensis is a hybrid obtained by the spontaneous cross-breeding of Chilopsis linearis (desert willow) with Catalpa bignoniodes (common Catalpa), discovered in the Tashkent province in Uzbekistan, then multiplied "in vitro" in the years 1960-1964. This large sterile shrub belongs to the family Bignoniaceae. If left unpruned, the Chitalpa forms a small tree about 6 to 8m (26ft) in all directions, with a spreading, branched, dense and rounded habit. It has a relatively short trunk, with low and ascending branching. Its grey bark is covered with light lenticels and cracks with age. Flowering takes place from late spring to summer (from May to August depending on the climate) with a possible reblooming in September. The flowers are arranged in conical and erect racemes, in the terminal part of the branches. The wide flowers, about 3cm (1.2in) in diameter, are sterile, tubular, bell-shaped, composed of 5 lobes, three of which are wider at the lower part and two smaller ones with very undulate margins at the upper part. Their colour is a pale pink, tinged with mauve, revealing a throat striped with pale yellow and purple. The flowering, very visited by bees and butterflies, exhales a sweet and somewhat heady scent, perceptible up close. This shrub has deciduous foliage, medium green tinged with olive, sometimes speckled with purple in autumn, distinctly veined on the underside. The leaves are simple, 10 to 20cm (7.9in) long, alternate, narrow lanceolate, very tapering, carried by very flexible green stems. The wood of the Chitalpa is very light. This shrub can be easily trained as a vine-plant, as it regrows from the stump.

Easy to grow, not demanding on the nature of the soil as long as it is well-drained, Chitalpa tashkentensis, adorned with a sweet scent of exoticism, also possesses the simplicity of hedge shrubs. Perfectly resistant to drought once well established, it is a valuable asset for the garden in summer, with its flowering that will accompany that of buddleias, mock orange shrubs, and of course, roses. It can be planted as a solitary plant to shade the terrace, at the edge of a grove, in front of taller trees, trained as a vine-plant or as an informal hedge mixed with other species (flowering apple trees, Japanese cherry trees, Chinese almond trees, Japanese quince, Deutzias...).