Glorious Ginkgo.

Well....I'm absolutely furious!!!!


While in LA the other day I'd taken some lovely photos of the glorious Ginkgo biloba trees gracing the streets.....and then my Iphone decided it had had enough!!!  And because i'm slightly techno challenged I forgot to backup my pictures before I went into a complete melt down and had to restore the phone to factory settings!  So.....pictures lost!


Anyway, enough about me....more about Ginkgo!


Also known as the Maidenhair Tree, Ginkgo biloba is a unique specimen that has no living relatives! The tree has been widely cultivated since an early period in human history and has been used as a food source and as a traditional medicine. The trees have strange, somewhat erratic branches and the leaves are easily identifiable.

Leading on from my last post, Ginkgo's are deciduous...and interestingly enough are 'sexual'....some plants being male, and others female!  Their reproduction ritual is quite complicated....but needless to say it works as they've been on this earth for a very long time!                                     

Being deciduous, the leaves turn a beautiful golden yellow in the autumn before they fall.  Once widespread throughout the world, the Ginkgo in nature now grows only in a small area of China but has been naturalised in many countries in Europe and also in North America.


Ginkgo's are very tolerant to pollution and extreme weather conditions and have been used for years as street trees and as specimen plants in parks and gardens. They are so tolerant of 'extreme' conditions that 6 trees growing between 1-2 km of the 1945 Hiroshima nuclear blast in Japan have survived to this very day!


They prefer a neutral to acid soil and can grow in restricted soil conditions, are virtually pest resistant and rarely suffer from diseases. For this reason they make excellent urban and shade trees.

Because the Ginkgo leaf is so identifiable, it has been widely used in a variety of decorative applications such as jewellery, fabric and wallpaper designs and to adorn porcelain and pottery.


As a medicinal herb Ginkgo is thought to improve thought processes and memory loss in older patients and has been suggested as a treatment for Alzheimer's.                                                                      


The Ginkgo biloba is the national tree of China.


So if you live in a temperate area and your looking for a specimen tree to grace your garden, or to provide shade in the summer....consider the graceful Ginkgo.....and own your own unique piece of  horticultural history!