Rewilding My Lot

2025 was the third year here for my Texas Mountain Laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum) tree, which had a major growth spurt during that time — increasing in height from 5 feet to 7.5 feet. Consequently, many of its branches are still rather green and pliable.

This spring was also the first time that this tree bloomed, and the blooms were followed by development of many heavy seed pods (see photo above).

The factors of rapidly growing new branches and heavy seed pods combined to weigh the branches down significantly, and the tree as a whole was splayed out and hunched over.

I don’t need to harvest ripe seed pods from the Texas Mountain Laurel this year, and so I decided that relieving it of the extra weight as soon as possible was a higher priority and I cut off all the seed pods. The effect was striking — as each cluster of pods was cut from the end of a branch, that branch would spring upwards by several inches.

Once I had cut off all the seed pods, their total weight was 7.2 pounds!

The removed seed pods are so dense that they are unlikely to compost well. They are also unlikely to develop into viable seed since they were removed when immature. So I just laid them underneath the compost tumbler as a mat to discourage weed growth.

The tree was so weighed down with the seed pods that I thought it would need staking. However, after the seeds were removed and the tree had a night to rest, I no longer think that a stake is needed.

Here are before and after photos of one view.

And before and after photos of another view.

This looks like a much happier tree now!