Koelreuteria paniculata 'CORAL SUN'® golden-rain tree

Coral Sun® is a fascinating new variety of golden-rain tree. It was found by Henny Kolster as a natural mutation among many seedlings in his Dutch nursery in Boskoop in 1993. For three years he had been grafting it onto the koelreuteria paniculata species rootstock and all new plants proved to be identical to the new seedling. A patent that guarantees protection of this plant and describes the invention was released in 2007 in the USA under PP17,409. It is also protected in Europe under Plant Breeders Rights EU 19811.

Coral Sun® is most attractive during spring months when new leaves emerge. They are finely cut, coloured salmon-pink at first, changing to golden orange and almost pure yellow before they turn light, soft green in summer. All this show is accompanied by distinctive, vivid red petioles that keep their colour until autumn. Then the leaves turn deep yellow while insolated leaves are fiery orange or salmon pink while the trunk and branches remains orange with red tints.

Golden-rain tree is famous for its summer flowering, and this variety first bloomed here in August 2012. It produced typical panicles of pure yellow flowers on the background of light green foliage combined with red petioles.

It grows medium fast making a rounded crown with age. Coral Sun® is often grown as a shrub and pruned hard to achieve the longest new shoots that have all the great colour features described above. Just wait with pruning until spring when the frost is gone but do so before the buds begin to swell. Golden-rain tree emerges later than many other trees.

It is widely soil adaptable. The soil should be well-drained and medium fertile for natural growing. If pruned hard every spring apply some balanced fertilizer to encourage strong new growth. Grow it in full sun, it needs warmth to set flowers should it ever flower. Plants older than 3 years are hardy to about -29°C (USDA zone 5).

Last update 19-01-2010; 23-10-2010; 29-08-2012