Drive-By Gardens: Grape Kool-Aid trees in northwest Austin
Can you detect a scent of grape Kool-Aid through your screen? I wouldn’t be surprised if you could. Austin’s enjoying a banner year for the fragrant, wisteria-like blooms of our native Texas mountain laurel (Sophora secundiflora).
This is the tree that helped sell me on Austin, as it was in full bloom when my husband and I first visited. In my 21 years of living here, I can’t recall the mountain laurels blooming better than they are right now. Each cascading purple flower cluster sends you right back to childhood with an intense, grapey fragrance.
And few gardens could have a more bounteous display than this Westover Hills home that I drive past every school day. This is a wider view of the scene pictured at top: a well-established, xeriscape garden composed of low-maintenance shrubs, trees, and palms, which shelter a small front lawn and provide privacy on a busy corner lot.
I’ve long admired the garden’s collection of mature natives like grassy Texas nolina (N. texana), currently in bloom; tall palmettos (Sabal texana) with cross-hatched trunks; and airy, silver cenizo (Leucophyllum frutescens).
A majestic screen of ‘Will Fleming’ yaupon hollies (Ilex vomitoria ‘Will Fleming’) is nice too. But wow, the mountain laurels! These are slow-growing trees, requiring years of patience and careful pruning to achieve this cascading form. So many people overprune Texas mountain laurel, leaving just a fluff of foliage on the top third of the tree. But I prefer a fuller look, and leaving some lower branches lets you get your nose in for a good sniff.
Just walking down the street gave me a pretty good whiff yesterday morning. Here, by the front walk, dwarf yaupon holly and Mediterranean fan palm (Chamaerops humilis) add more evergreen texture and contrasting form. As you might have guessed, deer tend to leave all of these alone.
Fan dance!
Looking up
Leaning in. Hey, Kool-Aid!
Layering with cenizo, Texas mountain laurel, and palmetto
On the other side of the street, unlikely bedfellows happily bloom side-by-side: Texas mountain laurel and flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), a small ornamental tree commonly planted in the Southeast but not this far west. Like azaleas, dogwoods prefer acidic soil, not the rocky, alkaline crumble we call soil. And yet here it grows — several of them, in fact, with a couple more in the neighbors’ yards. It just goes to show, never say something won’t grow here.
Around the corner I spotted this interesting xeriscape garden. Stone planter boxes add height to a pair of already towering beaked yuccas (Y. rostrata), while feathery bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa) softens the midsection. A long steel planter in front holds a collection of agaves, including ‘Sharkskin’, New Mexico agave (I think), and Agave parryi var. truncata. More agaves and yuccas anchor an undulating, stream-like bed of river rock. There’s a lot going on, but kudos to them for going water-wise and going bold. No timid efforts here!
Heading south I spotted a sweet, solitary redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis) in full bloom against a cobalt front door.
And another one, a deeper pink, at a business park. In another few days the redbuds will be putting on fresh green leaves, and the flowers will fade.
But right now it’s spring perfection.
My thanks to everyone who’s voted for Digging in the Better Homes and Gardens 2015 Blogger Awards. Voting ends this Sunday, and the Gardening category is now listed first, so it’s easier than ever. I was told that you don’t have to click all the way through the other categories for your vote to count. Thanks as always for your support!
All material © 2006-2015 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
I love it when the Redbuds bloom! That happens for us in May–around the time the local high schools have proms, which makes for great photo backdrops. 🙂 How wonderful to have Redbuds, Mountain Laurels, and Dogwoods all blooming at the same time. Enjoy!
There’s no such thing as a leisurely spring in Texas. Everything’s in a hurry to bloom before the Death Star switches to high beam. Of course we have summer bloomers too, but spring is much showier. I envy you a more stately spring, with plenty of time to enjoy everything! —Pam
Pam, you have fabulous gardens near you, and you captured them so well! That dogwood is not as anomalous as you might think. There are two adjacent Audubon preserves in a southern Dallas suburb located in a geological and floristic extension of the hill country, so they offer the same environment as the gardens in your post. They are Cedar Ridge Preserve and Dogwood Canyon. As you might guess from the name, the latter features native Cornus florida adapted to limestone. Until that preserve opened, I never knew about dogwoods on limestone either.
Who knew? Well, you did! It sounds like a Lost Maples for dogwood. —Pam
Yes, exactly. Good analogy.
I’m always surprised at how shady many Texas gardens appear to be – planting calculated to hold your “death star” at bay, I assume. Maybe someday, more Californians will fully recognize the value of expansive trees and foliage. As for those Sophora, I’m in love…
Well, we don’t have the views that L.A. offers (although the west side of town abuts the Hill Country, with canyon views). Plus, as you suspected, we value trees for their shade. It gets really hot here! It takes nearly an act of Congress to cut down a mature tree in Austin. 🙂 —Pam
Good morning Pam. How fun to see your neighborhood plantings. In Houston, I’m on the lookout for some mountain laurels. I did take pics of bluebonnets yesterday. I do so love Texas in the spring time.~~Dee
I sure hope you find one in Houston, Dee! The bluebonnets are amazing right now, aren’t they? —Pam
Pam, thanks for documenting this amazing year forTexas Mountain Laurels! I grew up in Austin, and have never seen such a bloom as we are enjoying this year! The bouquet is so enticing and heavy! Such nice photos…
Thanks, Gregory. I’ve been working in the garden all day and enjoying the fragrance. Yummy! —Pam
There is a particularly shady cul-de-sac in my neighborhood that has two abutting lots featuring flowering dogwood. I’d wondered if the folks who planted them had invested in some sort of involved soil amendment process but now I’m betting they simply planted and watered a little extra the first year.
I know I’m on the lookout for one to try here. I had a spot reserved in my imagination for a Japanese maple, but I’d much rather have a native dogwood!
I’ve never seen them offered for sale here, have you, Deb? I do see the rough-leaf dogwood offered. If you end up trying one, I look forward to hearing how it does for you. —Pam
The laurel is grapelicious. Everything looks lovely this time of year. Amazing that the dogwood is thriving in your area. Thanks for this show of spring.
Grapelicious is a good way to describe it, Lisa. —Pam
I was 15 when I first encountered Sophora blooming…mmmm grape bubble gum before and after Carlsbad Caverns! But the dogwood…wow, that’s wild (or loads of miracid).
Perhaps so, David. They’re also growing azaleas on that limestone, although they don’t look as happy as the dogwoods. —Pam
Wonderful spring blooms!
Hope you’re enjoying spring flowers too, Freda. —Pam
I’ve never seen or smelled Sophora secundiflora, not sure it will grow here. However I do get my Nehi fix when my Millettia reticulata blooms, and it too has the right color for grape soda.
I think you might be too far north and east, Les. But I’m glad you have a good local grape-soda plant. —Pam