In my last post, Texas Mountain Laurel, A Seasonal Look, I wrote that these lovely small trees are year-round, stalwart evergreens, even when under ice.
My Texas Mountain Laurels have successfully withstood Texas’ capricious weather patterns, from extreme drought and heat, to mild winters suddenly punctuated by bitter cold, icy conditions. Two years ago, during the historic nine day deep freeze, not-so-affectionately called Snowpocalypse or Snowmageddon, both of my laurels endured damage. Several limbs, big and small, died back. Some I pruned, others I left for the birds’ perching pleasure. No blooms happened that March, but both trees survived, albeit thinner in foliage and form.
Last week, another cold snap settled in for several days. It wasn’t as cold, only 29-32F, but rain, turning to ice, covered everything.
The half-inch of ice played havoc on tree limbs (and utility lines) all over Central Texas. The only damage in my garden was to my older Texas Mountain Laurel. This specimen, already weakened by age and 2021’s Snowpocalypse, suffered several breaks due to the heavy ice, impacting its canopy.
The tree survived, but a significant bit of top foliage is now gone. It wasn’t a lot of foliage, but enough of these extra bits now gone add arboreal insult to broken-branch injury.
This pile of foliage and limbs now sits out by the street, awaiting the City of Austin yard waste trucks to haul it away, to continue existence as compost, mulch, or Dillo Dirt.
What remains has shaken off the ice and is ready to move on to spring–and beyond.
This is the older Texas Mountain Laurel a few days before the ice storm. The upper left quadrant of foliage is where I have recently observed the Eastern Screech Owl couple perching together, as they meet one another each evening at sundown.
In the photo below, you can see that the foliage in that area is missing. However the tree remains viable, though weathered and aged.
The canopy is not as dense as it once was, the green not as robust and full. This tree is entering its last years, any ice damage adds to its struggles.
This second laurel has always grown shade. It’s never been as large or full as the other and sustained some damage from 2021’s storm.
This year’s ice storm had no real impact on this little tree. It’s ready for its spring flowering, limited though it is by shade.
Severe cold events and summer droughts have challenged both laurels, but they are tough plants and they stand their ground. The possibility of extreme weather events should always be considered when choosing plants for a garden. I wouldn’t hesitate to plant more Texas Mountain Laurels–and I have!
What’s that fragrance wafting on the spring breeze? It reminds me of, hmmm, let me think…grape soda! Where could it be coming from??
Truly one of the most beautiful of Texas native plants, this is the gorgeously blooming Texas Mountain Laurel,Sophora secundiflora. A slow-growing, small tree, the Mountain Laurel produces luscious purple, sweet-fragranced flower clusters for a few weeks in February/March and has rich, abundant foliage for the entire year. I’ve grown two in my small urban lot: one is about 28 years old, the other a few years younger. Neither are in full sun–where the laurels are at their best–but they’ve both flowered each spring, some years more than others, and both have provided dense foliage that birds appreciate and humans admire.
A drought tolerant, tough tree, Texas Mountain Laurels are native to the Texas Hill Country, west to New Mexico, and south to parts of Northern Mexico. They’re not picky about soil, but want good drainage. I’ve never experienced any insect damage on my trees and laurels are deer resistant plants.
Early bud developmentBuds near bloom time
Texas Mountain Laurels grow and bloom best in full sun, but they are also great plants for shade and part shade, they grow slowly with fewer blooms. My older tree has grown up in the shadow of a good-sized Red Oak tree, but it always dresses up in its spring flowers and most years the purple-cluster blooming is excellent.
As the Texas Mountain Laurel is one of the early spring bloomers, it’s an especially important nectar source for pollinators. My honeybees always partake of the rich blooms, but butterflies, native bees, and a variety of flies buzz around the tree constantly during its flowering.
Blue Orchard Bee, Osmia lignariaEastern Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes Monarch Butterfly, Danaus plexippus
The migration of North American Monarch Butterflies doesn’t always coincide with the flowering of the laurels, but often the two events are sync-up and it’s wonderful to observe the fluttering Monarchs.
Texas Mountain Laurels are known for their intense, grape soda-like fragrance. Some people love it, others find it cloying. I like the fragrance, but interestingly, I can only detect it at night or when my nose is snug-up in a bloom cluster. I have a fairly good sense of smell, but this particular fragrance eludes me, with those couple of exceptions.
Unfortunately, the Texas Mountain Laurel doesn’t have a long bloom time. That’s the flaw in a nearly perfect plant! Blooming occurs over a 3-4 week period, faded blossom parts falling to the ground, creating lovely lavender sprinkles around the tree.
After the blooms, come green legume-like pods. Texas Mountain Laurels are in in the Pea or Fabaceae family and their pods and seeds are definitely bean-like.
In years when the blooms are prolific, the seed pods follow the same pattern.
By autumn, the pod clusters hang from limbs like dangling earrings, rattling like mini maracas when shaken. They are attractive in their own right.
Eventually, the pods break open and reveal hard, scarlet beans which fall to the ground, ready to usher in the next generation of tree.
Over time, tiny seedlings grow from the fallen seeds.
These seedlings are easily transplanted, or you can leave them where they landed. Mountain Laurels are tricky to transplant when the seedling is taller than about 12 inches because these laurels have deep tap roots, and unless you get the whole root, the transplant will die. Over the years, I moved a few baby laurels around in my garden and given away even more. Because of its slow growth, the gardener will require patience to see tiny seedlings to adulthood. The good news is that this plant is readily available in most nurseries. I personally wouldn’t by anything smaller than a one-gallon container; it will take a decade or more to reach shrub or small-tree size. The wait is worth it, though!
This post is part of a series I call A Seasonal Look. Most plants change their looks over the course of a year: they bloom, set seed, maybe change foliage color, drop foliage, and become bare-limb when dormant. Or perhaps they’re evergreen, blooming on-and-off throughout the year, according to seasonal variations. Certainly Texas Mountain Laurel is no different in that it demonstrates changes. In late winter the plant begins its ramp-up to flowering, bub spikes grow with spring blooms to follow; seedpod development occurs during late spring, continuing their maturity through summer. By fall, the toasty seedpods are ready to drop, allowing the tree to rest before spring flowering beckons.
After the purple flower power show, Texas Mountain Laurels are a steady presence in the landscape: the luxuriant, rich green foliage surrounds warm, textured bark, creating a lovely shaped tree. Some gardeners prune to a single trunk, but if you do that, you’ll always have to prune, because the plant wants to grow and sprout new limbs. I’m on team multi-trunk: I love the natural shape of these trees and see no need to prune to a formal shape. Nature has done a fine job of fashioning something exceptional–why mess with it?
From late spring, going forward, the Texas Mountain Laurels look like this:
And in summer and autumn:
During the the winter months, the laurels are a green oasis in the dormant garden. Even after ice encases the foliage,
…the verdure of the leaves prevail, a harbinger of new growth and life in the garden.
Texas Mountain Laurel is a stunning, hardy and resilient large shrub or small tree, beautiful during Spring:
When we returned during the first week of January from our European travels, our Eastern Screech Owl, Megascops asio, nest box was open and ready for residents.
It was surrounded by lovely autumn foliage, though shortly after this photo was taken, the leaves went brown and dropped. This is a new box, as the older one was no longer functional. The fancy slide for the door that The Hub engineered is so we can easily close the box after the chicks fledge and the owls vacate, or, at the beginning of owl nesting season, to prevent squirrels or opossums from squatting in the box. We also installed a new camera (some wiring is visible at the bottom, left of the box). With that new camera we saw that a squirrel had filled the box with leaves, prepping the box as her nest for some babies. I feel sorry for evicting the squirrel by pulling out the leaves, but we built the box for owls, not squirrels. I had observed an owl in the box before we left in mid-December, but that doesn’t always mean that she’ll settle in for nesting.
But settle in she did, within a day or two of removing the squirrel’s leaves. Shortly thereafter, this little egg appeared:
…and two days later, another,
…then another,
…finally, a fourth.
Note the swish of Mom’s tail feathers at the top of the photo.
Wow! This couple got busy, probably in late November; I had no idea that breeding action had commenced. This is the earliest that a Screech Owl couple has ever started their breeding season in my garden. In past years, I observed their courtships during January and February, watching them meet at sundown, woo and canoodle, then fly off together to hunt for the night.
And as I write that, it sounds voyeuristic and maybe even a little creepy.
The fact is that the best time to observe these elusive nighttime birds is during their courting and the raising of their chicks. This season, I missed the first part of that fascinating process. Typically after courting Mama resides in the box in February, laying her eggs during in March; chicks fledge between late April and mid-May. Dad will hunt and provide food for the whole family, until the chicks are nearly old enough to leave the nest box, when Mama joins him in the hunts. This couples’ early nesting is new in our Screech Owl experience, but is within the time frame of owl procreation here in Texas.
If I’m out at the right moment around sundown, I’ll see Mama swoop out of the box for a quick piddle-n-poo break. I imagine she takes a few breaks during the night, but she’s on the nest nearly full time now–those eggs need to stay warm and cozy. Dad has been harder to observe this year; I’m pretty sure he’s holed up in my back neighbors’ large elm tree, but it’s likely he moves around from place to place. I’ve only spied him once, at sundown, when he flew to the nest box, then to the nearby Mountain Laurel tree. Mama dashed out to met him, both perching briefly in the laurel; I lost sight of them after that.
Eastern Screech Owls are amazing hunters, but they’re also vulnerable to larger predators like Great Horned Owls (we have a pair in our neighborhood), accidents with automobiles, and poisons laid out for rodents which impact the food chain. All I can hope is that this couple remain safe and healthy, and are able to raise their chicks to adulthood.
My Gardener Says... 