A question for my Texas friends

[urbpan]

This is the kind of question that's best answered with careful research, but more fun to toss out on my blog. And considering that most of people I know who live or have lived in Texas are students of the life sciences in one way or another (including one conspicuously horticulturally minded individual), asking y'all isn't such a bad idear. (Whoops I mixed up my Texas and New England there.)

ANYWAY my question is: What types of fruit trees could one grow in one's small piece of Texas property, assuming that property is in that little Rhode Island sized segment region including Dallas/Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and surrounding space? And better: what fruit trees could one grow (or plant and have thrive) that make sense from an ecological point of view, that is, are not invasive and don't require input of too many alien elements such as water and fertilizer and such?

I asked this question of my Texas coworker, and she looked at me like I asked where I could store my flying saucer in Texas. (duh! Anywhere!) Eventually she remembered that there are trees that produce pecans and perhaps also plums, but couldn't answer my string of increasingly desperate and boring questions: "Avocados? Peaches? Oranges? Lemons?

It's one of the important side issues to the great "Where are we moving?" conundrum.

Comments

[morrigandaughtr.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about this topic myself, and I noticed she's not on your friends list but miriams_well is a very skilled gardner and could probably answer this question well.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

castor bean plants grow quite well there. too well :)

me? i'd try bamboo. i'm funny that way. just maintain it.

pawpaws... osage orange tree (good wood, good crop for animals supposedly), any nut trees i could manage

not coming up with any fruit trees that would enjoy that climate... mmm.

#

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Pawpaws are good and we're overrun with persimmons both wild and cultivated, but you might want to be careful about the bamboo. Most of the varieties that do well out here are also incredibly invasive and damaging.

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there used to be bamboo in our backyard, and we swore there were pandas hiding back there. I think we eventually had to use a thermonuclear device to remove it.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

There's a stretch of major Dallas thoroughfare through which I have to pass that's lined with bamboo. Not only is the bamboo completely inpenetrable, but it's cracked the roadway several times and come up through two feet of concrete. I've even seen it crack concrete pools, so I'd never put it in any back yard unless I really hated the person in question.

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

Wow. Ours came with the house. Must have been the thing to do back in the 70's.

Now I'm in the land of the evil oriental bittersweet and autumn olive.

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

My dad grew up in Dallas, and his dad had *I think* a pecan and an orange tree in the backyard. Also grew a lot of greens, as a result Dad hates them.

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

And as always, Ask the Aggies.

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

Or, in shorter order, http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/southerngarden/treelist.html

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Very helpful, thank you! (but far too close to research!)

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

I just had to comment, I love the icon :) My mom (from Houston) had a pet opossum when she was a kid, it was a baby that got abandoned on the porch. When it got too big and mean they gave it to the Houston Zoo!

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

Definitely pecan trees. :) I think that collecting pecans is a right of passage for kids in most of Texas. You do have to watch out for the tent worms though...

We had plum trees when I was growing up and they always did well. My current neighbors get an abundance of peaches every year. If you like them, crabapples grow well, albeit slowly. Depending on the species and the weather, fig trees are possible. I had a fantastic Celeste fig a few years back that grew quickly and fruited quite a bit for the size. Unfortunately, it was killed during an extended freezing period. If you're further south than DFW (or if the winters continue to be as mild as this one), figs would be a good choice.

Not a tree, but if you like grapes they grow pretty well in Texas. As do blackberries, if you have the patience to get the canes started properly.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

It's funny that you bring that up. The newest issue of Texas Gardener has a cover story on frost-resistant figs for North Texas.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

It was my one statement upon buying my house that I /would/ have a fig tree in the backyard. I love me some sun-warmed figs.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

The answer is just about everything. :) I personally just planted a peach and a plum tree, which probably won't bear until next year. And for what it's worth, my mother grew lemons in a pot, even though it's supposed to be too cold for citrus here.

The three cities you cite are in very different ecological zones.

According to Howard Garret's "Texas Gardening the Natural Way" some varieties of the following fruits will probably do OK, with variable success due to local ecotomes:

Dallas: Apple, Apricot, Blackberry, Grape, Peach, Pear, Pecan, Persimmon, Plum, and Strawberry

Austin: Apple, Apricot, Blackberry, Figs, Grape, Peach, Pecan, Pear, Plum, Strawberry

San Antonio: Apple, Blackberry, Cold-adapted Citrus, Figs, Grape, Peach, Pear, Pecan, Persimmon, Plum, Strawberry.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I forgot to mention that these can all be grown organically, and are not considered invasive. I would think that apples would be the hardest to grow, and peach or plum the easiest. If you want to go pecan, there are many native pecan species that are resistant to many diseases and pests.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Even two years ago, I would have recommended against apples, mostly because the winters out here didn't get cold enough for them. That was before I saw some of the beautiful grafted dwarf trees available with rootstocks that don't need the long dormancy. I don't know how well Golden Delicious or Granny Smith would produce in our heat, but as soon as someone has a Macintosh that can survive a Dallas summer, I'm buying a house to go with it.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Noodles comes through again! Thank you kindly!

The three cities you cite are in very different ecological zones.

I suspected as much, and need to look further into it. That's the (very) general area we're interested in. Now that I look at it, the area we're considering is about 2.5 times the size of rhode island.

Are San Antonio and Austin that different, in terms of ecological zones?

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

It is my understanding that they are, I've not lived in either city. At the very least, all the gardening maps I've ever seen put them in different climate zones. I believe that the Hill Country is a little cooler and wetter than San Antonio.

Both cities are situated in the geologic transitional zone (see this map that runs across the state, so I think that there's quite a lot of variability in microclimate within a short amount of distance.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Quite a bit. Austin is part of the Central Texas hill country, while San Antonio is semi-desert. Fort Worth is right on the edge of the West Texas semi-desert, while Dallas is a weird fusion. We don't get enough rain to support the forests of East Texas, we get too much rain (and have such thick clay soil) for cactus, we get enough freezes that we can't support plants such as datura or citrus without assistance, and we don't get cold enough to support a lot of others. It's a real challenge as a gardener in Dallas (http://txtriffidranch.livejournal.com/53926.html), and that's half of the fun.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

Now that I look at it, the area we're considering is about 2.5 times the size of rhode island.

yeah, when i read that in your post, i thought, um, did rhode island take steroids?

DFW has an organic gardening club that hosts lectures, meetings, etc. i'd certainly think austin would have one too (or that it would be easy to start one if not) and wonder if san antonio might as well. you could write them questions before you move, but they would also be a good networking and information source afterwards, if you did pick one of those cities.

[ckocher.livejournal.com]

My grandmother always had beautiful apricot trees when I was growing up. I know you can do avocado as well, and plum and pecan as you mentioned... I've heard of people growing lemon trees near the coast.

This was in the desert part of the state - it might be easier in east Texas, where you actually get some rain from time to time.

[hhw]

another website of possibly useful info: http://arborday.org/media/zones.cfm

(this one also has an animated map showing the warming trend in hardiness zones between 1990-2006)

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Peaches and nectarines are a given, even if most of the available cultivars tend to have problems with fungus during rainy summers. In fact, the town of Weatherford, just due west of Fort Worth, has a regular Peach Festival. Pecans out here are nearly indestructible (I have a monster one right next to my front porch), and the only real dangers they face are webworms and squirrels. Hard pears also do very well: my parents had dwarf pears that were so productive that one tree shook itself literally to pieces during a bad thunderstorm because of the fruit load. In the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, citrus does best if it's in containers (I have a Rio Star grapefruit I grew from seed five years ago in a container on my back porch, and I'm getting a Buddha's Hand citron that's going right next to it) because of the occasional freezes, and I'd never recommend avocados unless you could bring them indoors for the winter.

Well, that's a start. If you want to get an idea from someone who knows what the hell he's talking about, buy a copy of Howard Garrett's Plants of the Metroplex or Texas Trees (http://www.dirtdoctor.com/store.php?type=1). I know Howard and have my occasional disagreements (usually borne of the usual "Never trust the plant books because the damn plants don't read"), but he's a hell of a lot closer to the mark than other Metroplex gardening writers I know. Even if you don't plan to move here, buy his books anyway: I pay a high compliment when I say that Garrett does for Texas horticulture what Joe Bob Briggs did for drive-in movies.

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

LOVE pecan trees. They do very well in TX. My grandmother also had a plum tree. We had a couple of pear trees at our house and they did well for many years. Never could do citrus, though - too cold in winter, I guess. Blackberries grow wild everywhere, too.

Osage Oranges (aka Bois d'arc) trees are really unusual, don't know if you've seen one. The fruit looks like green monkey brains - surely you'd be interested in that?! ;)

[iheartoothecae.livejournal.com]

I don't know what these people are talking about. I planted a whole bunch of things last year, and none of them stayed alive. Clearly, this is the fault of the climate.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

But, come on--picnics in February!

[buboniclou.livejournal.com]

And droughts the rest of the year! :P

[izzy23.livejournal.com]

This might be a good place to ask: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/fruit/msg032114568102.html

(Yeah, I know Houston is a lot wetter than the area you're considering, but the seasonal temp changes shouldn't be too different).

*EDIT*: Here's a much more relevant link: http://www.fritzhaeg.com/garden/initiatives/edibleestates/austin.html

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

That's a very encouraging link!!

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

My mother was told that the reason we had no squirrels in our oak-tree-ful yard was that squirrels in Texas eat pecans, not acorns.

And my grandmother always used to appropriate her neighbor's plums for her plum kuchen.

I guess neither of these really add anything new, except to support the opinion that plums and pecans will grow in the Dallas area :)

[miriams-well.livejournal.com]

It varies significantly by microclimate.

Here on the east side of Austin, I'm successfully growing two fig trees, a loquat, and a small flowering quince in addition to two grape vines and some blackberries. All this and my garden on a regular-to-small garden lot. Oh, and we have a kaffir lime -- I guess that's technically a fruit tree . . .

[by-steph.livejournal.com]

Muscadine grapes are a native plant and volunteer their services everywhere. I hear they have an oily taste, but people make them into wine. Last year I planted a bare root Concord grape. It did alright last year, but I have yet to see if it made it through the winter. It is still not late enough in the year to start watering Mediterranean plants. The night before last, it got down to 31 degrees so that is wise advice.

Pomegranates love Austin. Dwarf pomegranates are used as landscape shrubbery and "regular" ones can be observed growing everywhere. We have two, and they are doing well. They need very little care.

I have one peach tree that would do well with fertilizer, but other than a problem with only a few, stunted peaches being produced, the tree is doing fine. It made it through last winter. It has not yet started to bud this year. It is on the far side of my yard, so I don't water it very often. There are so many peach trees in the Austin city limits, that you do not need two for fertilization. The ambient amount of peach tree pollen is so high, they do just fine.

I have a nectarine that grows just fine, although I water it more than the peach tree. Last year it produced no fruit. Maybe this year it will. So far, it hasn't budded yet.

I have a plum tree that grows like mad, and we got one plum from it last year. You have to realize we don't water very often, don't fertilize at all, and we have young trees.

Turk's cap require no care. They are native and the fruit tastes like a gritty apple. Not a tree though.

Pecans are everywhere, but make sure you get the strain that is easy to peel. Native pecans only seem to be desirable to squirrels.

I am growing three avocado trees that I germinated from grocery store avocados. Last year, they died back to the ground because of the ice storm. This year, it looks like they kept their leaves until very recently when everything turned brown. I am curious to see how they return this spring. These are the Mexican kind of avocados, which usually have a problem with their leaves turning brown from salting of the soil with the amount of irrigation they require. Then, I learned that it might be from chlorinated water. So, last year I only watered them with water from the rain barrels and their leaves didn't turn brown.

I was driving past a house the other day and they had a giant orange tree growing outside - with a bunch of oranges on it. I had read that they can do well for a few years in Austin, but sometimes we get fluke winters that kill them. The tree obviously made it through last year, so maybe there is hope.

I was talking to a lady at a kolache bakery about the pineapples she grows in her yard. I don't remember the planting directions (grocery store stock), but she claimed they did pretty well here.

You can grow bananas here. There is a cold hardy, edible variety that exists, but I haven't found it in any nurseries. Bananas are generally landscaping plants here. They require little care.

My bare root raspberries all died in the heat of the summer and my bare root blueberries eventually died too. They like acidic soil and ours is generally alkaline.

Prickly pear cactus fruit is edible.