Just some thoughts on your plant choices... Loropetalum and Lavandula stoechas are at opposite ends of the water requirement spectrum, and Loropetalum wants to get 5 feet tall by across or more at maturity, you'll be pruning this a lot and losing the natural form to keep it in check. I never use Loropetalum chinense rubrum selections unless they have at least 6 feet of space to grow. Purple Fountain Grass is really more of a warm season annual than a reliable year round good appearance perennial in SF Bay Area conditions, and I only use it in my designs as an annual to be yanked when it starts looking bad by late December/early January. It seems to take forever to look good after winter is over, while it arrives early in the season from southern California greenhouses each spring, it may be mid June before one in the ground looks full again. I'd suggest sticking with plants that are more water compatible if it is all on the same valve. My personal bias would be to lose the Pennisetum rubrum and substitute with more of the Lavender or maybe some Tulbaghia violaceae 'Silver Lace' for a similar grassy foliage look and long bloom season/deer resistance. Adding something like a spilling Erigeron x moerheimerii would also relate to the Lavender. If you like purple foliage, I might suggest seeking out Eucomis comosa 'Sparkling Burgundy' as an accent,(but this isn't a Home Depot type of plant), or maybe Sea Lavender/Limonium perezii for the long spring to fall deep purple blooms and low water needs. If you wouldn't mind adding some magenta/fuchsia flower color to the mix, Salvia chiapensis is another one that spills and drapes and has a nearly year round bloom period, or the newer hybrid Salvia 'Wendy's Wish' is quite nice as well. Some bulbs such as Scilla peruviana could also be an interesting addition to the mix, with bold color in March/April, and survives on rainfall alone.

I really like the smaller pink blooming ones, I think they are Japanese magnolias and deciduous. When a late freeze doesn't get them, which it often does, they are really pretty especially as understory trees. That site Dawn provided has some nice smaller ones. However, unless you have a really really big yard that will give you the ability to view it properly, the huge evergreen ones look downright oppressive to me personally because they are often out of scale visually with the home and the branches are so low growing. They look especially bad planted too close to the house and I see that situation all the time. We had one next door when I was growing up and the magnolia pretty much dominated the whole front yard and the house too like a huge out of place giant dark "thing". They couldn't plant anything else by the house. The same is true for weeping willows. You need a big yard to get the visual effect and correct scale to avoid being visually overwhelmed.

I only have two red roses- Munstead Wood, which I got bare root last summer and is barely hanging in there, and Showbiz. I find myself attracted most to the red and white roses. I love Cherry Parfait- I have Double Delight, but Cherry looks redder. I also love all of those red/white reverse roses- Snowfire set my heart on fire! Fire and Ice is another one, and Mariposa Gem is perhaps my favorite of them. Beth's black-reds are unbelievable. I would never even try one of those here with our heat, but I swoon when I look at them. I may replace the Showbiz I have with Lavaglut, since Showbiz don't like the heat and lasts such a short time. I am also looking at Don Juan- almost bought it today. Here's Showbiz: Renee

corkball1, There are probably some Black Gums around Dallas, but only one I recall seeing was at the arboretum. Suspect it would have to be pampered some to do well in the alkaline leaning soils common here. Am going to have to go back and check out the arboretum tree this fall to see if it turns that wonderful red ... believe it's the champion tree for the DFW area. davidrt28, I actually believe Mexican Sugar Maple would probably grow pretty well in the soil here thanks to its alkaline tolerance. It's just that local reliability in zone 8a clay, form, and even actual parentage of SFAU's openly pollinated seedlings are still largely uncertain this early in the domestication process. Someone interested in this tree can read the fairly recent status provided on page 197 (PDF page 18) of this SNA conference Plant Breeding and Evaluation paper to decide if its attributes make it worth chasing one down at this stage. One of a few I would be willing to gamble with if we still had the space of a two acre suburban lot. With the work in progress and five more native distributions to consider, seems very likely that reliable selections/hybrids of good color and form will eventually be available through Dallas area nurseries.