The Trees that Grow in my Garden

A few days ago fellow Central Texas garden blogger Laura at Wills Family Acres wrote about the trees growing on her 2-acre property. It was fascinating to see the large numbers of live oaks and cedars on her plot, and also fun to see how many trees she and her family had planted.

I really liked the idea, and decided to copy Laura and make my own Tree Inventory post. After subtracting the area covered by driveway, hardscape & house from my quarter acre lot the remaining plantable area is pretty small... how hard could it be to count the trees on 1/8 of an acre?


"This should be a cinch," I thought. "All I have to do is take the tree names from my plant spreadsheet."

But it wasn't that that simple. The first problem was deciding what counted as a tree. Are hollies trees or shrubs? Are boxwoods shrubs? Where are the lines?
What about small baby trees in growing-on containers?  Do I count trees that are brought into the garage or house in cold weather?

The second problem was that my spreadsheet was not complete. I'd made a note of every tiny plant brought home from Barton Springs Nursery and the Natural Gardener, but had never entered some of the large boring plants already growing here in 2004 when we bought this house. (I'm talking about you, Photinia.)

Categories seemed to be the answer.

For this list, a baby tree in a container is still a tree and trees kept permanently in containers are still trees, but they'll have their own category. I considered calling this Texas Palmetto a tree, but with a future height of only 5 to 6-ft, decided to leave it off the list.



A plant that wants to be a tree but can be kept to shrub height by constant pruning counts as a tree on the list. Neglect to prune a Ligustrum hedge or a Red Tip Photinia hedge and you'll end up with a forest of Ligustrum and Photinia trees.

If a treelike plant has the potential to be 7 or 8 feet tall it counts as a tree. For example, my Barbados Cherries have been pretty wimpy, but I've seen them look like small trees in the gardens of friends. 

The trees and treelike shrubs that were already growing here when we moved in will have a separate category.


GROUP 1 -Trees that were here when we moved in that are still alive :

Arizona ash (1 very large)

Pecan, unknown variety (2 very large)



Live Oaks (2 medium large)

Yaupon holly (1 lovely, muli-trunked tree, about 15-ft  tall)

Crepe myrtle, the common hot pink ( 6 in sizes from 7-ft to 20-ft)

Holly - some kind of Chinese holly (1 allowed to be a 12-ft tree, 1 pruned repeatedly to 5-ft)

Nandina (3 kept at 6-ft)

Red tip Photinia (3 kept under 10-ft)



GROUP 2 - Trees that were planted by us:

Loquat tree (3 trees, one large, one medium, one about 4-ft tall, all from seedlings)


The largest loquat is in the photo above, with Bay Laurel in container left, larger Southern Wax Myrtle in ground right

Magnolia 'Little Gem' (1 about 12-ft tall)

Sweet Olive (3. The oldest is very established and kept to 12-ft tall. Two younger plants are under 5-ft.)

Texas redbud (1, about 10-ft tall)

'Forest Pansy' redbud (1, about 10-ft tall)

Vitex /Chaste tree (1, kept to 10-ft tall, from a seedling)

Magnolia figo/ Banana shrub (1 about 8-ft tall)


In the photo above, the Banana shrub is at left next to the bench, center is a young Texas Mountain Laurel, then a camellia, then the tall, burgundy-leaved Loropetalum/Chinese Witch Hazel


Cenizo/Texas sage (1, kept to 8-ft, grown from a seedling)

Beautyberry AKA French mulberry (1, kept to about 7-ft tall)

Evergreen sumac (1, barely 5-ft tall after 7 years in the ground)

Barbados cherry trees (usually frozen back, one tree about 6-ft, another about 4-ft)

Crepe Myrtle 'Acoma' blooms white (2 trees, called semi-dwarf, kept to abt 12-ft in height)

Crepe Myrtle 'Catawba' blooms purple (2 young trees, under 5-ft.)


Crepe Myrtle  labeled 'Muskogee', supposed to bloom lavender (1 young tree, abt 6-ft tall)

Crepe Myrtle 'Zuni' blooms orchid pink (1 young tree, under 9-ft)

Meyer's Improved Lemon (1 tree, when not winter-killed, pruned to about 9-ft tall



Loropetalum/Chinese Witch hazel (2 - the one in photo with Magnolia Figo is about 9-ft tall, the other is a young plant about 2-ft tall.)

Pineapple guava (1 about 6-ft tall)

The Pineapple Guava has reached the top of the privacy fence - in the background is one of the Live Oak trees.


Rose 'Mutabilis' (1 in ground, kept to 8-ft by diligent pruning)

Texas Mountain Laurel (4 plants. Two about 6-ft, one about 5-ft, one about 2-ft)

This is the only one of my 4 Texas Mountain Laurels that has ever bloomed.

Satsuma orange 'Miho' (1 young tree abt 3-ft tall)

Southern Wax Myrtle (1, about 5-6 ft)

Mexican Buckeye (1 baby tree in the ground, maybe 2 and 1/2 ft tall)



GROUP 3- Trees planted by us, presently growing in containers:

Oleander (1, very large container, kept to 10-ft in height.)

Rose 'Mutabilis' (1 about 6-ft tall)

Bay Laurel (1 about 5-ft tall)

Southern Wax Myrtle (1 abt 4-ft tall)



Dwarf Pomegranate (2 plants, one under 2-ft, one about 7-ft tall)

Pineapple guava (1 about 5-ft tall)

Montezuma cypress (1 baby tree)

Thai lime trees (2 small trees, both under 3-ft, one in garage, one outside)

Willow, corkscrew (1 under 5-ft kept in container, grown from a cutting)

Meyer's Improved Lemon, (1 small tree bought in March 2006 - blooming in the breakfast room right now)




Whether or not this list is interesting to you readers, it sure is useful for me as a garden record... Thanks for the idea, Laura!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day April 2012

Spring 2012 has brought some pleasant surprises, like blooms on the Hesperaloe/Red yucca - the first flowers in three years.

The mild winter allowed the unfrozen Loquat tree to give us fruit as well as flowers.

But our tree seems to be better at making flowers- the fruit is quite small with very large seeds so it took an enormous amount of loquats to yield enough pulp for one batch of loquat salsa and a few jars of loquat jam.

It wasn't exactly a surprise when the 1940 US census records were released at the beginning of April - genealogists and family historians were counting down the days. Building the index is a huge project, requiring thousands and thousands of volunteers. I've tried to balance my desire to quickly hunt down my own family members in 1940 with my wish to help other people find their family history. Now I sometimes hunt and at other times I am a volunteer indexer, working from my home on my own computer to add to the index. If this idea intrigues you, look into becoming an indexer, too - the project is huge and should go on for many months.

One of my favorite not-quite-surprises is the Sweetheart arch. When I planted the 'Climbing Iceberg' rose and Confederate Jasmine on opposite sides it didn't seem like a gamble - those are plants that are usually pretty tough in Austin. They lived but didn't thrive in 2010 & 2011. This spring the arch is almost covered in white flowers - makes you want to walk through and sit on the bench, doesn't it?


If you'd like to see the complete list of everything that was in bloom on April 16, 2012, with my best efforts at the botanical names and more photos, click over to my companion blog, Annie's Addendum.

Since Carol of May Dreams Gardens started this meme in February 2007, on the 15th of each month she makes a post & a roundup of participating gardeners from all over-here is April 2012.

Happy Spring from Annie in Austin!

November Bloom Day - Expected and Unexpected

Written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog

There's a complete list of blooms for November 15th (along with more photos) over at my Annie's Addendum blog. Please take a look! I did my best with the botanical names but I'm not a botanist - let me know if you think something is wrong.

Spot watering/hand watering has kept quite a few things alive in spite of drought and heat. The almost-3 inches of rain that fell on October 9 helped the shrubs and the cooler weather has helped everything - including the gardeners.

A few weeks ago the Abelias began blooming and suddenly Monarch butterflies appeared. Now the Monarchs have moved on and the A-Bee-Lias bloom for another kind of winged insect

Their flowers are lovely whenever they appear but that bees will love them is expected.

Another lovely thing is the Loquat tree, mostly recovered from bad freeze damage last winter, and just beginning to open its fragrant flowers.
That scent now says Thanksgiving to me, so it's not unexpected in November but after the hailstorms, flood, deep cold, extreme heat and unprecedented drought it's experienced in the last couple of years, I'm grateful that the scent of the loquat still floats on the air.

What is unexpected is to see bluebonnets with buds in November. Apparently some seeds had sprouted in late winter or early spring but were immediately overshadowed by the nearby seedlings of Cosmos. The bluebonnets lurked underneath the jungle of tall orange cosmos leaves and stems, only revealing themselves when that generation of cosmos died off so a new crop could start. My neighborhood has only had a light frost so far - it will be interesting to see whether this flower will be able to bloom blue or if it will freeze.
The usual milkweed grown in Illinois was the orange perennial Asclepias tuberosa. I've tried that here with no luck. So a few years ago I planted the tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica , and now it is a reseeding annual in my garden. Seeds often sprout in inconvenient places so some are pulled up, but I always let a handful grow on to bloom with colorful yellow petals & red-orange sepals. This month there are many flowers on four plants but there seems to be something unusual about the sepals. Although I can't remember them being anything but solid red-orange in previous years, this year all four plants display white blotches on some of the sepals.

Darned if I know why... they seem to be opening solid first and then the white streak shows up. Has anyone else seen these white marks on tropical milkweed? Does anyone know why it happens?
After you've checked out the list on the Addendum you can find more than 125 gardens linked to May Dreams Carol for November Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for December 2010

It's time for the December GBBD -our traditional monthly roundup of what's in flower, started by MayDreams Carol almost four years ago. I took time off from baking and shopping to take a few pictures because December has been pretty nice here in Austin! The photos may show you how different the light is now with most pecan leaves down in back, and with the leaves of the Arizona ash trees in front now turning from green to gold. (Many of the photos will expand if clicked.)

Repeated light freezes have killed off many of the October and November flowers - the Blackfoot daisies and cosmos, the peppers and basil, the mistflowers and moonflowers, the evolvolus and Mexican Mint marigolds, the Blue Butterfly clerodendron, the tips and leaves of 'Pam's Pink' turkscap and all but two species of salvia are done. Most of the view seems green, brown and straw-colored.
The larger showy flowers are gone, but if you go in closer there are small delights scattered over front and back and side gardens. 'Marilyn's Choice' Abutilon lost a few flowers to freezes, but the plant has new buds developing

The Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' that was beginning to open a month ago is now reaching the end - but what a show it put on!

The pink camellia was a 1-gallon starter plant in 2005. Next to it is another camellia - a japonica called 'Morning Glow'. It's been in this container just over a year, bought November 2009 all budded and ready to go. 'Morning Glow' is budded again - today opening the first flower of 2010.
Around the corner in the Secret Garden is the shrimp plant seen last month, with even more flowers. I tried to take a photo that would show you where the name came from:

Now back to the patio where the Loquat still blooms against a blue sky
And the Pineapple sage has somehow remained unharmed and in bloom after at least 5 nights with temperatures well below 32°F. The summer flowers are gone from the hanging basket on the patio, along with the coir liner - picked to pieces by birds. To plant these black pansies, I had to improvise with plastic screening and old pieces of artificial pine garland. The Rosemary Birdbath Fountain has two Rosemarys blooming around it.. the upright which blooms whiteAnd the prostrate rosemary which blooms blueOne of the nearby patio containers has a 'Mutabilis' rose - not exactly in bloom, but definitely in bud
In another nearby container a 'Provence' lavender defies the frosts with a few flowers, the tallest wand seen here with the triangle beds and long fence bed in the background. The long fence bed has a few blooms - one bud on the 'Julia Child' roseAnd a trio of colorful blossoms closer to the gate: yellow Salvia madrensis, orange flowers on the fresh green-leaved Mexican Honeysuckle, and more orange from the cuphea, its leaves turned bronze with coldA glance at the Tropical milkweed with blue plumbago at its feet and we're out the gate, walking over to the bright pink Gaura in full bloom and the pink skullcaps with a few flowers brightening the Pink Entrance Garden. The central butterfly bed in front is pretty quiet from the sidewalk side, right now - but from the house side it's very colorful Purple creeping lantana and a few unfrozen Blackfoot daisies combine well with the finally-in-bloom Lion's Tail plant. Here's a closer look at the flowers- it's only marginal in my far NW Austin area so each look may be the last! Let's go to the front door - a couple of plants have flowers inside, too. I've had four plants of Schlumbergera/Holiday cactus for quite awhile. This year the peachy pink one is already in bloom near the dining room window. Two more plants in other colors are budded but the fourth plant is having an off-year. This window gets some light... but no real sun.

Five florist Cyclamen look quite content in a brass planter on the tabletop.
The breakfast room window gets the strongest sun so it's jammed full of overwintering plants. The four-year-old 'Fantasia Salmon' geranium blooms next to a 'Black Pearl' pepper popped out of the triangle bed before the first frost a couple of weeks ago. Mother of Thousands, a plant in the Kalanchoe family, grows in pots on the patio for summer. The bigger plants often freeze and die but a few babies live over to keep the strain going. If a plant has buds it gets a space inside before the first frost Here's this year's winner of the Bay Window lottery.

Carol's post and links to many garden blogs is found here at the May Dreams garden Blog.

Better get back to baking... some day the complete list of what's in bloom (with botanical names) will appear on Annie's Addendum. Hope your December is going well!

Edited Dec 19 - List of all in bloom in December is up on Annie's Addendum.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for November 2010

The monthly recording by Garden Bloggers of what's in bloom in our yards was started by May Dreams Carol in February 2007. It became an instant tradition, letting us share our garden flowers while acting as a useful tool to keep track of how the plants we grow act in different years.

Many dependable plants will make a fourth appearance in this November GBBD post. But there are downsides to keeping records... a glance back shows what is not here - cold January 2010 weather killed the Duranta, defeated the Confederate Rose and disappeared every bit of the yellow bulbine, a plant that had grown so exuberantly in 2009 it was thinned and divisions were given away.

With records to tell me what to expect, should I now feel cheated because the usual November bloomers didn't flower? Woe, woe, for the spindly Passion vine, the struggling Brugmansia and what remains of the Toad lily! The roses are 'resting' and the Sweet Olives are off schedule. There is not one Meyer's lemon for Thanksgiving cranberry relish? No fair!



Enough of the whining - one advantage of being a plantaholic is that no matter how many plants bail on bloom day - something will have flowers:

It's ironic to see the Camellia 'Shishi Gashira', beautifully budded and with glossy foliage after a year that knocked off plants more suited to Central Texas.


The Loquat tree is also well-budded, now opening the first flowers - so even without the Sweet Olive's fragrance, November smells sweet.
Just a breeze across the leaves can make the Pineapple sage release scent, too. One plant grows in the Hummingbird bed.. this one is near the Blue Butterfly Clerodendron on the patio. Pineapple sage seldom lives through winter but it's usually easy to find starts in spring. Replacements for blue Clerodendron are hard to find and expensive. After helping me find this large potted Blue Butterfly, Robin told me that cuttings root easily. I've taken her advice and have rooted a few pieces to grow indoors as insurance that blue butterflies will float over my garden next year.

Salvia regla would prefer life on a rocky hillside in the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend, but it survived the 12" deluge from Hermine in September and has been popping orange flowers for weeks. Most sites call it a shrub, but it freezes back so hard in my garden that it never attains much size.


More orange and yellow come from Tropical Milkweed/Asclepias curassavica and Mexican Mint Marigold. The milkweed doesn't always survive winter but usually reseeds somewhere nearby. The Mexican Mint marigold/Tagetes lucida, has been perennial in my garden since 2004.


A paler yellow color comes from the Salvia madrensis/Forsythia sage, seen here leaning onto the Mexican Honeysuckle/Justicia spicigera

I've grown Moon Flower vine/Ipomoea alba for decades but don't remember buds and flowers in mid-November - they look defiant against yesterday's grey afternoon sky


Because two plants of Ageratina havanensis survive & bloom in the front yard, a third plant of the native fragrant mistflower went into the yaupon bed this spring, mingling with Salvia vanhouttei. The salvia is pretty tender but the mistflower should return.
The pink gaura looked horrible in late summer... a severe pruning and cooler weather produced intensely colored flowers
The pot of 'Provence' lavender started blooming in May and hasn't given up. Neither has the Evolvolus 'Blue Daze'. These plants don't do well when planted in my clay soil but they can do well in containers

If we can avoid a freeze for a few more weeks, these tiny peppers might make it to the kitchen.
All the above blooms have made previous November appearances - but this is the first November for some new plants.

'Marilyn's Choice' Abutilon was a 1-ft tall rooted cutting when I planted in the new yaupon bed last spring. It made a few flowers, then turned to branching and growing into a gawky shrub. This abutilon looked like a big weed all summer, not reblooming until now. The flowers are not thrilling me but watching them develop is interesting. I planted another plant in the mallow family, Pam's Pink Turkscap/Malvaviscus 'Pam Puryear' in the same bed. It also grew into a large, gawky, branched plant that looked like a weed as summer waned. It had a few pink flowers at the beginning of November but they're gone for GBBD.

After planting the 'Marilyn's Choice', I hedged my bets by moving the other small abutilon into a container so at least one of them could be taken in or covered in cold weather. The second abutilon was just called 'Patrick's', but Linda of the Central Texas Gardener TV show let me know it's named after Central Texas garden designer Patrick Kirwin. This plant never branched but steadily produced one lovely flower at a time on an ever-taller stalk.

The Shrimp plant/Justicia brandegeana was planted in late spring. It opened a few flowers, then looked stressed. Apparently what it wanted was relocation! Instead of trusting the gardener to catch on the Shrimp plant grew an elongated stalk, leaned that stalk onto the ground, rooted it at the end and sent up a healthier plant 2-feet away from the spot I'd chosen. The flowers do look like seafood, don't they?
Lion's Tail is another new plant that resented being planted this year, not growing at all for months. After Hermine is perked up, grew steadily and now has buds. But we're getting close to average frost date and it's only borderline hardy in my part of Austin - any bets on whether these buds will open before the plant freezes?

A final November bow by a newcomer is made by the miniature climbing rose 'Red Cascade' rose, described as a miniature climbing rose. It wasn't planted until midsummer and I don't know how it will do longterm, but how good it is to see in bloom on this November day.


For a bloom-tour around the world go to Carol's November GBBD Roundup.

For my list of everything that has a flower, with my best tries at botanical names, go to Annie's Addendum