Rewilding My Lot

There are a total of nine trees on this property, all young and varying in height from a few inches (Mexican Buckeye and Red Buckeye) to about 9 feet (Desert Willow and two Live Oaks). The other trees range in height from about 2-6 feet (Mexican Plum, Texas Mountain Laurel, Mexican Olive, and a dwarf Barbados Cherry).

Most of the trees are full of lush spring growth, but there are two that are lagging.

One is the dwarf Barbados Cherry (Malpighia glabra), which appears to be growing back from the roots in two places. Last year, this plant also grew back from its roots after a winter freeze, but ended up growing larger than it had the previous year. Being a dwarf variety, I wouldn’t expect this to grow more than about 3 feet in height, and perhaps this one is destined to be shorter than that if if has to work this hard every year to grow back. However, it looks happy and I am not concerned.

The Mexican Olive (Cordia boissieri) is concerning me, though. A year ago, in January 2024, we had a freeze down to 16 degrees F. All of the tree did eventually recover, although it made new growing points because the original ones at the tips of branches were killed. This year, in January 2025 we had a freeze down to 20.3 degrees F, and then another a month later down to 19 degrees F.

What I see now, two months after the second winter freeze, is new growth only from the main trunk close to the ground and new leaf shoots on the lowest branch.

The rest of the tree looks dead, although scraping a small piece of bark from an upper branch with a knife reveals something that might be green, so who knows?

The strongest factors in choosing plants here have been that they are native and highly resistant to heat and drought. Choosing by those parameters sometimes brings the risk that plants might be more vulnerable in harsh freezes, and this is apparently the case for Mexican Olive.

So now I have decisions to make as I watch what this tree does during the summer. If it remains stunted, it will not be the tree structure that I wanted in that location. What to do then? I could accept the Mexican Olive for what it is and keep whatever growth it is able to achieve. Or I could replace that tree in the fall with something different in the same location. Or I could keep it where it is and plant an additional tree somewhere else. To be determined!