Maybe the tree in White Rock is too young to flower yet? Also could be the cooler oceanic summer climate in White Rock is delaying flowering - in Britain (even cooler in summer) Tulip-tree doesn't flower until much older than it does in its home range, and some individuals not at all, ever.
They bloom nicely in our hot Kootenays climate, but there are only a few of them here. There is one in Castlegar, two, as I know, in Nelson, and a couple of them in Creston. To my knowledge that's all. They are beautiful trees and unusual here, am wondering why they are not more popular.
Huge tree that may lose large limbs after becoming big enough to do damage, in the manner of a cottonwood. Nevertheless, A.L. Jacobson notes in Trees of Seattle - Second Edition (2006) that there are a lot of them in Seattle, including one 122 ft. tall.
There are hundreds of them in Vancouver (I was going to say thousands but am not sure, though it seems that way), most planted as street trees and in parks. And there are getting to be a good number of Liriodendron chinense as well. I'm very keen to see the hybrid, but I've no idea how I would recognize it as such, so I would particularly like to see one that's known to be a hybrid (if anyone happens to know of one anywhere near Vancouver).
Maybe the the L. chinense are a bit trimmer and work well as street trees and along allees in a park? I think the leaves are prettier, with the glaucous undersides, not that the Parks Board asked me. I don't think people plant Liriodoendron for the flowers.
Creston has quite a few tulip trees, actually. Check out Beltane Nursery; 12th Ave. above Canyon; Dogwood St. just west of 18th Ave; Creston Valley Hospital; 7th Ave. across from Anglican Christ Church; 11 Ave. at Erickson Rd. Liriodendron chinense flowers don't have the hummingbird-attracting orange of L. tulipifera, but their petals fall while fresh, forming a carpet -- unlike the American, they don't wilt on the tree.
