Friday, March 2, 2012

Texas Mountain Laurel

Spring is here!  That's right... For me spring starts with Mountain Laurels.  The sweet grape cool-aid smell that perfumes the air ...that is the smell of spring.  The flowers, purple flower clusters look so fresh and delicious.  ( Don't eat these though, they are supposed to be poisonous)  It's a TX native, drought proof, heat proof, and deer proof.   It is a slow growing evergreen tree.  The foliage comes in a range of colors from dark glossy green(my favorite) to silver.  In the wild it's an understory tree, but it can take the full TX sun, in itself that is impressive as not much care for full sun in summer here.  I have seen trees close to 20ft tall, but imagine they must be old.  Mine are about 5 years old and close to 4ft tall.  The biggest one was 3ft tall when I planted it 5 years ago, and has grown to 4 feet.  Patience is definitely a virtue with this tree, but for the two weeks in spring it perfumes the air it is worth it

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