Dear Nancy, when I was doing Chelsea I was told to throw away two paperbarks as they could not get them on board the transport we had. I managed to get some help and rescue them, they were huge then! I planted them in my mothers garden some 25 years ago. One is massive and incredibly beautiful. It is completely underplanted with cyclamen that have spread to every inch of space. The problem is they are notoriously difficult to grow from seed i.e. the original seed from the parent tree. I tried every which way for years to no avail at all. Reading an Article on them, as China will not let anyone take anymore seed from the wild, it said that in the wild they do not germinate till the tree is 60-70 years old and then only at 5-7% of seeds will. As my mothers one is so big I took every seed I could of it, thousands of them. With a lot of mucking about five germinated, and lived. I have one in my garden and the rest I spread out to good gardeners as the seeds (viable ones), from an original tree are rare. They were found in China by some British Soldiers in W.W.W. II, so the two trees I got must be at least over 60 years old, plus a bit more. I love them although they are cheap now as they propagate them from cells! Which means they are all cloned and not quite like the original, well they are all cloned of one tree so they are all the same, if that makes sense?
Regards & hugs.
Neil.
p.s. bottom of my mothers one, well mine really!
