Here's a question for my Gentle Readers With Green Thumbs, especially those of you who live in my southeast Texas area. What trees do you like in a back yard?
We need to put some in this fall, but El Jefe doesn't want trees that drop lots of leaves to rake (this is our "retirement" home after all) or that drop nuts or other stuff to pick up. I'd like something that will grow quickly so we will be able to enjoy it. Any tree down here needs to tolerate heat and occasional droughts.
I do miss my old yard with its very mature bushes and trees!
So, what do you recommend? Crepe myrtles? Any type of oak? Something else?
9 comments:
I live in a similar planting zone and recommend the following:
Cypress
Black Cherry
Tulip Poplar
Check out Neil sperry's book on Texas gardens. Or neilsperry.com. I know one point he makes over and over on his radio show is that trees that grow fast are actually not very high quality. He has a very short list of 5 or 6 good trees for north Texas. Not sure what his list would be for your neck of the woods.
I love the "dwarf" crepe myrtles that only grow to about 6-7 feet.
How about a Meyer lemon tree? They aren't messy. Mine has six nice lemons on it--not bad for its first year!
Nell Sperry is good - I referred to him often when we did our landscaping. Have you ever heard of a sweet olive? http://www.magnoliagardensnursery.com/productdescrip/Osmanthus_SweetOlive.html They smell DIVINE. Might take some research though about how much of a pain their little berries are, but they are evergreen. (But maybe not big enough for what you are looking for?)
Not sure if they do as well there as they do here in Central Florida, but Camphor Trees grow quickly and don't have much to drop. Theoretically they are also good for repelling mosquitos, which could be very handy. Trumpet Trees are beautiful quick- growing flowering trees, but not much else. And then there's the elm family... winged elms are native to Texas and make good shade trees.
(Word verification is oddly appropros to my not so green thumb giving plant advice... deathpro)
My thumb is anything but green - we planted some sort of live oak and crepe myrtles on the northwest end of town. The crepe myrtles grow fast and are beautiful, especially to those of us who relocated from W. Texas. The oaks are slower but I'm partial to oaks.
Houston is the only place we've lived that I actually was able grow things.
Thanks for the great suggestions! I'll ask Joe the landscaper about them and let you know what we decide.
Oh, please no more live oaks -- If you must have an oak, try a water oak or my favorite, a red oak. I love our Meyer Lemmon - lots of fruit and little work. The pommagranate is doing great (an experiment last year) and the fig tree is tremendous and just bursting with figs - I think it is a truely beautiful tree too. My agave is big enough now to be considered a tree - nice native. Oh, how fun to get to plan everything new. We have some fun citrus too - let me know if you want the names.
I highly recommend an anaqua. I grew one in my back yard in San Antonio. It's fast growing, long lived, and evergreen. Here's the info:
http://texastreeplanting.tamu.edu/Display_Onetree.aspx?tid=27
It's says it's slow growing but mine was incredibly fast growing.
It's a great tree and should be planted more often. It should do well in SE Texas. It thrives in SA and Victoria.
Other than that try a cedar or winged elm.
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