I think most plants these days come from California. Many local nurseries take a Dave Wilson plant, stick it in a pot, take the label off, & stick their own label on. At least at Doans you know where the plants from, & what rootstock its on. Ive had good luck with persimmons, figs, pomegranates, & jujubes bought there; I havent bought pears or apples there, I didnt see the variety I wanted on the rootstock I wanted. Fwiw, I think the Doans grow themselves most of what they what sell, & its worked for them. Btw, Cherries have a hard time here, I think thats why Doans doesnt sell them. Some reading that you might be interested in.: http://www.neilsperry.com/maq/fruit/what-are-the-most-dependable-fruit-varieties-for-north-texas DOT html womacknursery DOT com http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/files/2010/10/pears DOT pdf http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/fruit-nut/

Hello Olive growers, The tree pictured by bhawkins looks pretty well developed. The ones I bought from Santa Cruz nursery are smaller and only have a single trunk about 12" tall. I'll probably buy my future trees from Jim Henry since shipping will be shorter than from Califonia and the trees look bigger. Can you tell me how much Jim wants for his trees? Does he ship from Dallas or near Austin? By the way of my 20 missions from Santa Cruz, 7 died for whatever reason with the others developing new growth. Its just now starting to get in the 80s here. Two were chewed on by deer and I don't know what happened to the rest. All the missions had the top 3 inches or so of growth die back due to the cold weather. Then in march it was in the 80s a few days and then dipped to 32 deg or so with a frost that also killed off all the new figs that were coming out on our fig trees. They are just now (end May) starting to come out again. They maintained the green leaves that they were shipped with throughout the winter. I'll get some more this fall and am thinking about adding some Ascolonos since they are also cold hardy. One of the trees started to develop leaves and then we had a frost that may have killed it. The Arbequina is the only olive I have thats bigger than the one pictured but was planted spring 2007. The Arbequina suffered no frost damage. The low was about 14 deg last winter and I covered the trees w tempshield their first year when the temp dipped below 25 deg F. Good luck with the Olives. The one in the pic looks good for a new tree. wct111, you sound like you are near Stephenville, TX which I've been to on several occasions.

X Chitalpa tashkentensis was developed in Tashkent, Russia and introduced to this continent by the Cary Arboretum in New York. Much of the point of the thing is its ability to grow in severe situations, however, it has been found to do best in this country in the Southwest. There are quite a few of them in my area also, but we have a soft climate. Here the main point of interest is that it produces showy flowers all summer. Most independent outlets here had them for a time, but it seems to have been dropped. I noticed an ugly duckling appearance with young, retail nursery sized stock, including few branches and a tendency to develop foliage mildew - the latter probably due to the usual inadequately frequent watering as it is not conspicuous among established trees in the general landscape. Another factor that may be involved is that trees in general have become a bit of a hard sell in the current retail market.

"The weather is hot, but not super humid. So long as you have a big tree, a swimming pool and working A/C, you'll be fine." Oh, my gosh, I so disagree with this comment. I think Texas is unbearably hot and humid in the summers. I live in Iowa, where we typically experience very hot and humid summers, and Texas, IMHO, is 10 times worst. I made the mistake one summer of visiting my brother--who used to live in Grapevine and is now in Bedford with plans to move to Fort Worth shortly--in July. It was terrible! I vowed never to go back to TX in July and I never have. We went from A/C'ed house to A/C'ed car to A/C'ed store. We were only ever briefly out of the A/C. Of course...all this said...I LOVE going to Texas during an Iowa winter. Nothing like being able to go outside in nothing but shorts and a T-shirt in the middle of December when everyone else back home is shivering in their heavy coats!