x Chitalpa tashkentensis Summer Bells

x Chitalpa tashkentensis Summer Bells (Minsum) is a more compact version of the Chitalpa from Tashkent, more suitable for small gardens or container cultivation. It is a beautiful bush or small tree that combines summer flowering with exotic charm and is easy to grow in many regions. It is adorned with beautiful clusters of fragrant, nectar-rich, frilly trumpet-shaped flowers in pink-mauve with a pale yellow throat washed with white and streaked with purple. This hybrid variety also has a gentle countryside charm that is hard to resist. It deserves a special place in the garden, in the sun, in ordinary but well-drained soil.

Chitalpa tashkentensis is a hybrid obtained by spontaneous cross-breeding of Chilopsis linearis (desert willow) with Catalpa bignonioides (common catalpa). It was discovered in the Tashkent province in Uzbekistan, then multiplied "in vitro" in the 1960s. This large sterile bush belongs to the Bignoniaceae family. It perfectly withstands both cold (down to -20°C) and dry summers. The Chitalpa tolerates limestone well and likes deep, well-drained soil. The Summer Bells cultivar was selected by Minier Nurseries for its small size. It tolerates severe pruning in late winter without affecting its flowering. It won the 1st Prize at the Innovert Competition in Angers in 1999.

Left to grow freely, Chitalpa Summer Bells forms a small tree about 4 to 5 m in all directions, but regular pruning easily keeps it at 3 m high. It is bushy, branching, dense and rounded. It has a fairly short trunk, with low and drooping branches. Its grey bark is covered with light lenticels and cracks with age. Flowering occurs from late spring to summer (from May to August depending on the climate) with a possible second bloom in September. The flowers are grouped in conical and erect racemes, at the end of the branches. The wide flowers, about 3 cm in diameter, are tubular and bell-shaped, composed of 5 lobes, three of which are wider at the base and two smaller ones with wavy margins at the top. They are pale pink, tinged with mauve, revealing a throat streaked with pale yellow and purple. This flowering is visited by bees and butterflies and exhales a sweet and heady scent up close. This bush has deciduous foliage, which buds late in spring and falls in October-November. The leaves are a dark olive-green, sometimes speckled with purple in autumn. They are simple, 10 to 20 cm long, alternately arranged on the branches, narrow lanceolate, clearly veined on the underside, and carried by very flexible green stems. The wood of the Chitalpa is very light. This bush can be pruned close to the base, as it regrows from the crown.

X Chitalpa tashkentensis Summer Bells, with its pastel flowering surrounded by a gentle exotic fragrance, also has the simplicity of hedge bushes. Once well established, it is drought-tolerant and is a valuable asset for the garden in summer, flowering with buddleias, mock oranges, and of course roses. It can be planted as a standalone specimen, on the edge of a grove, in front of taller trees, trained as a climber, or as an informal hedge mixed with other species (flowering apple trees, Japanese cherry trees, Chinese almond trees, Japanese quinces, deutzias...).