Lazy, Thanks for letting me know I may only be half the fault of losing this once lovely tree. It is a bit of comfort actually. kazooie, I'm thinking of a Chinese Pistache. We live on a cul-de-sac and are the center house so when one turns onto the cul-de-sac our yard is the focal point [unfortunately at the moment, previous owner wasn't into landscaping]. This tree will be planted beside the driveway [no carport or garage] and will serve to shade the vehicles from afternoon sun. Somone on this forum has reminded me of the Swan Hill Fruitless Olive and I want one of those too but it will probably go in the back. Next fall for tree planting. I missed the opportunity by putting in then losing the TML. Happy gardening! Mary

These are so slow growing, it's often better to have a local nursery order the largest blooming size you can afford. They may hesitate if you're lower than hardiness zone 8, but worth checking with them. You might be able to order direct from Monrovia for delivery to a local nursery, but my experience has found it more dependable to have a willing manager at a local store they supply order it for you. If time is not an issue, seedlings are occasionally offered on ebay or Etsy (hidden among dozens of seed listings); though, these will be 3+ years from blooming depending upon the growing conditions you provide.

They will recover from hard pruning. The city came through a couple of months ago trimming tree limbs away from the power lines and what they considered 'brush' from the easement in back of our house. They did some extreme pruning on a Texas mountain laurel that I had planted to help screen my compost bin from our easement neighbors. I wasn't all that pleased with their pruning job, but the Mountain laurels surprised me by already putting as much as 36 inches of growth to what was bare sticks. I've let it grow where it pleased, but you will probably want to direct the growth of yours by finger pruning any unwanted directions.

The main warning we got when planting TML on the north side of Dallas (8a) was about occasional flower loss because the buds set in the fall. We've had one in the ground for several years without any die-back, though has only been flowering the past two which were not particularly harsh ones. We had the Sophora worms/Tent caterpillars (Uresiphita reversalis) for the first time this year, but they devoured our little Baptisia and never made it to the larger TML on the other side of the house.