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Our Ginkgo Trees
Our Ginkgo Trees
In 1977 we planted our first Ginkgo biloba. Ginkgo trees are long lived, disease resistant and so beautiful, especially in autumn with their golden foliage. We have planted several other ginkgo trees and find they are slow starters but well worth waiting for!
We knew very little about Ginkgo trees and planted our tree too close to the house. We knew that the fruit of female trees are a challenge because of their smell. No problem! We planted a male gingko tree.
Now we have discovered we planted a very productive female tree! In the late fall of 2015 we were astonished to find three fruit on the patio. The next year we found ten. The last few autumns we stopped counting but made sure to pick up every fruit that fell on the patio.
Branches and leaves of the ginkgo are so interesting. The leaves grow in an alternate pattern on the long lateral branches. On the ends of short lateral shoots they grow very slowly in clusters and produce a long shoot with scattered leaves after a number of years.
The short shoots also produce the
seeds (on female trees) and pollen
(on male trees).
The soft, smelly outer layer of the fruit has to be removed. This outer coating causes an allergic reaction for some people
Inside this hard white seed coat there is a delicious seed snack, very popular in Japan.
