Tropical Tulip Trees

African Tulip Tree and the Iiriodendron Tulipifer Trees

As you will see these two Tropical Tulip Trees are quite stunning and showy with its big Red flowers on the African tulip and Yellow flowers on the liriodendron tulipifer. Great for evergreen gardens!

The African tulip is also known as flame of the forest, fountain Tree, Firebell, but its botanical or scientific name is Spathodea campanulata. It comes from the Bignoniaceae family.

It is adorned with many large Red and Orange flowers that are quite spectacular when in bloom.

This incredibly beautiful tree can grow to be up to 80 feet tall and it is native to tropical Africa, hence the name African tulip tree…… but is naturalized through out the tropical pacific and most southern florida.

Liriodendron tulipifera is its botanical scientific name but it's commonly known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tuliptree, tulip poplar or yellow poplar.

This tulip tree is graced with stunning show stopping yellow flowers that are so beautiful yet this tree is not commonly seen in gardens or nurseries.

They are known to get as tall as 190 feet, with its trunk reaching 10 feet in diameter, although it’s more common for it to grow to about 60 to 70 feet tall and are native to eastern North American.

Both trees blooms are incredible and grow normally larger than a man’s fist and are fast growing trees.

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How to grow plants and trees

Both are similar in its growth habits and needs.

They are sun loving trees the more sunlight the better they grow and more flowers are produced in the spring.

Another commonality is that these trees can get messy when shedding so be prepared to do some raking but to me its all worth it with their spectacular displays of flowers they produce.

The liriodendron tulipifer grow best in zones 4 to 9 and it favors slightly acidic soil that is coarse to medium.

The watering shouldn’t be excessive, just keep the soil slightly moist.

This tree might cause a bit of a mess when it starts to shed but its all worth it, also make sure to prune to help keep it to your desired shape and size.

Now for the true tropical beauty the African tulip or Spathodea campanulata grow best in zones 10 to 11.

This tree is definitely not suited for small landscapes, make sure to grow it where it won’t be near a pool because of the mess they can make.

It requires little attention as far as the growth, but needs a lot when it concerns pruning and fallout cleanup as I call it.

This tree will bloom during the winter and late spring but will not tolerate winters of frost. Growing them in zones 8 and 9 might be pushing it a bit and you probably won’t have a healthy evergreen tree year after year.

It also doesn’t need a lot of water and isn’t too fussy about the soil as long as its well draining.

Before they bloom the buds are about two-inch-long, fuzzy brown and filled with water, the native children love to play with them and use these as squirt guns. Children are awesome, you don’t need to buy them expensive gifts they will find things including flower buds to have fun with!

As I always say with all newly planted flowers and trees, this is when they need more water than usual until they become established, after that these trees do really well with very little.

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