My friend called me for a bit of advice. He wanted to plant fruit trees in his yard and needed some tips as to where to best plant them. As it turns out, he had found fruit trees on sale at the local garden center and had bought several, lured by reduced prices. Unfortunately, he had bought fruit trees that do very poorly in Houston. And his yard was too small to accommodate the trees even if they could thrive long enough to get to a mature size.
The ‘big box’ garden centers generally do a good job of selling plants that potentially could do well in our Houston climate. It doesn’t mean they will thrive. Most likely the trees were grown in Arizona or California. Even though they sell types of plants do grow here, plants from out of state are not acclimated to our soils and humidity and rainfall and heat.
There are many nurseries and garden centers in the Houston area that sell locally grown plants which are hardier and thrive better. There are even nurseries in the area that promote Texas native plants. Using locally grown native plants is by far the best option when shopping for the hardiest, healthiest plants possible for your yard.
I felt a bit sorry for my friend. Instead of having lovely hardy native trees to nurture, produce quality fruit, and enjoy for years, he put his time, attention and resources toward trees that will not do well. I helped locate his new trees in the best spots in the yard for the mature sizes. And, even though the trees have now been in the ground for a couple seasons, they have yet to produced fruit!