Ginkgo
Ginkgo biloba, also known as the maidenhair tree, is like a living link to when dinosaurs walked the earth—fossils prove it’s been almost unchanged for 200 million years! In fact, it’s the only survivor of a whole ancient plant group and has no close relatives.
These trees are real life champions. Some individual ginkgos are over 1,400 years old and there are stories of ginkgo trees regrowing after the Hiroshima atomic blast. The golden autumn leaves have inspired poets for centuries, including Goethe, who penned romantic verses about the famed fan-shaped foliage.
Ginkgo’s resilience is legendary, thriving in city pollution, drought, heat, and tough soils. That’s why you’ll spot them from New York avenues to tranquil temple gardens in China and Japan. Their seeds have a strong scent—so gardeners prefer male clones for urban plantings!
You can find ginkgo for every garden style: classic shade and gold with ‘Autumn Gold’, compact dwarf ‘Mariken’ for pots, the living sculpture of ‘Horizontalis’, variegated ‘Majestic Butterfly’, and even the quirky ‘Troll’ for rock gardens.
What’s more, ginkgo is nearly pest-free, long-lived, easy to care for, and brings autumn gold, ancient mystique, and poetic charm to any garden. Few trees can match its story!
