Top 5 Unusual Native Trees for Central Texas Landscapes
What do you imagine when you think of a tree? Probably you think of a big stately shade tree—huge, ancient oaks and other massive trees with sprawling limbs, gnarled bark, and dappled sunlight underneath. But trees don’t begin and end with giant oaks and elms.
Enter: the understory. In the forest, these are the trees you see at eye level—the trees pulling your gaze as you walk with their bright, fragrant flowers in spring, fiery fall foliage, colorful fruits in winter, and shelter at the woodland’s edge. If you choose native trees, they will also provide important color and food for pollinators and birds, turning your backyard into a busy, idyllic haven for wildlife.
Interested? Here are a few of my favorites.
Mexican Plum (Prunus mexicana)
Have you or your loved ones been the unfortunate victim of an exploding Bradford Pear in a recent winter storm? Do you miss its spectacular spring flower show but not the really gross, rotten-fishy smell of its flowers?
Consider my favorite replacement, the Mexican Plum tree. Like the Bradford Pear, it can take full sun, is covered in pinkish-white flowers in spring, and has magnificent fall color. But it’s a better tree in every way.
First of all, they don’t explode. Secondly, the flowers smell wonderful and sweet—similar to apple blossoms, and nothing like decomposing seafood. They also require virtually no supplemental watering once they’re established. Even when they aren’t blooming, the soft, cup-shaped leaves and the mature bark—somehow both shiny and cragged at once—make them a beautiful addition to the landscape. I especially love them in dappled shade.
Perhaps most importantly, like all native members of the prunus genus, this is a powerhouse tree for supporting birds, butterflies, and moths. Have you ever seen a tiger swallowtail butterfly or a cecropia moth? These gorgeous, gigantic pollinators can only raise their young on a select few types of trees, and Mexican plum is lucky enough to be able to host both! And that’s not all. According to the National Wildlife Federation, 270 species use this tree as a caterpillar host here in Central Texas. Since many species of birds raise their young primarily on insects like caterpillars, this tree is a must-have if you love seeing birds.
Bigtooth Maple (Acer grandidentatum)
The western cousin of the sugar maple tree responsible for the crunchy leaves and fiery forests of New England that everyone envisions when you think of fall (along with scarves, 12-foot skeletons, crisp air, and pumpkin spice lattes). This tree is smaller than its eastern kin, rarely more than 40 feet tall, and unlike most maple trees, it thrives in our shallow limestone soil and alkaline conditions.
Like other maple trees, our native Bigtooth Maple has gorgeous, fiery foliage in the fall. Its dense canopy makes it a good choice near a sitting area outside, so that you can enjoy the cooling shelter of its shade in the summer and its autumn show. Choose a low area of your landscape so that it can enjoy a little extra moisture during our rainy seasons, since this species prefers low canyons and moist streambeds in the wild.
Unlike its non-native relative the Japanese maple, you won’t be arguing with this tree about soil acidity. And, since it’s native, it feeds 180 species of butterflies and moth, including several big, gorgeous silk moths like the Luna moth and Promethea silkmoth.
Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana)
This drought-tolerant native tree is ubiquitous in woodland areas here in Williamson County. You can tell that this tree can take the worst our summers have to offer because it grows in upland areas at the tops of hills, thriving despite very little soil or water.
Texas persimmons are dioecious, meaning that some trees are male and others are female. Only female trees will produce the small, black fruits, which are sweet when fully ripe. Still, one of the things that makes this tree so special is its beautiful exfoliating bark, which all trees have once they’re sufficiently mature. And if you need a neat, clean tree that won’t drop messy flowers and fruit but brings welcome color and interest to your landscape, a male persimmon is an excellent choice.
This tree can thrive in full sun to dappled shade. I love its small, delicately fuzzy green leaves and silvery trunk. The flowers are an important pollen and nectar source in early spring, and they smell delightful. The foliage also hosts Io moths, American Lady butterflies, and 46 other caterpillar species.
Possumhaw Holly (Ilex decidua)
You may be familiar with evergreen hollies, with their thick, waxy leaves (whether small and smooth, like the yaupon holly, or big and spiky, like customer favorite tree Nellie R. Stevens). You may wonder why you would bother planting a deciduous tree when you could have an evergreen one with green foliage year-round.
I’m here to counter: why not both?
The possumhaw, our deciduous native holly tree, has the same elegant white bark that stands out against the landscape. Its softer, more delicate leaves move more delicately in the breeze than their stiff evergreen relatives. Those leaves turn a warm, golden color in autumn before falling to reveal the tree’s most charming feature: female trees spend the winter with their otherwise bare white branches covered in dense clusters of bright red berries. Since birds don’t enjoy the berries until they’ve gone through several freeze-thaw cycles, this show lasts into late winter before a flock of cedar waxwings might descend and gobble the whole hoard at once.
Most trees are male, and you’ll have more berries if you plant both a male and female tree, so I recommend planting one tree of each sex if you aren’t very close to a wild area with a healthy population of this tree.
Anacacho Orchid (Bauhinia lunarioides)
I’ve saved my personal favorite for last. The sweet, butterfly-shaped leaves give this tree a uniquely delicate look in any landscape. It is covered in white flowers for a few weeks in spring, when it smells sweet and faintly spicy—like honeysuckle, cloves, and cardamom.
It also grows quickly—I mean really, really quickly. Three to four feet per year once it’s adjusted to planting, with a mature height of up to about fifteen feet. You can plant a baby tree and have a real feature in your landscape in just a few years.
Finally, it’s bulletproof in our thin, rocky, alkaline soils. Native to just a few canyons in central Texas, it prefers well-drained limestone but still does well in a rain garden that collects and absorbs runoff from your landscape (provided that your soil is mostly limestone and has excellent drainage). It laughs in the face of heat and drought, relishes full Texas sun, and looks just as fabulous in a little shade. It also fixes nitrogen, so it will improve the soil around it while looking and smelling awesome.
Meghan Smith is a nursery specialist at HCWG, a native plant enthusiast, a freelance garden writer, and a local Lorax. When she isn’t taking care of plants here at HCWG, you can find her either cooing at a dog or crawling around in the dirt identifying plants and bugs somewhere in the Hill Country. She publishes Central Texas-specific horticultural and ecological musings at (substack). We are stoked to have her on our team!
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