Hi and welcome to Houston! Creeping fig - evergreen, no flowers (though there's a varigated type.) They get pretty rampant. you'll see them a lot in Houston on the walls. Very easy care. easy to find in landscape places, they're often already kind of large. Grape ivy - sold as a houseplant sometimes. I'll think a little harder to see if there are more flowery options. I'm imagining strong afternoon sun? trumpet creeper's fairly rampant and would probably work. a lot of people hate this plant for this. But it's pretty and you'd have better control over it in a container three floors up. One thing - no matter what, you/DH will have to water it a lot. that's pretty much a given for TX containers.

Hey Galveston1602, I live in the West U./Med-Center area of Houston, and spend most of my time inside the Loop, west of Main St. and south of Buffalo Bayou. Galveston has always relied more heavily on tropical plants than Houston, especially with the history of "wicked" freezes that plagued the mainland until about 1990. After the winter of 1989/90 even about 90% of the W. robustas were AGAIN wiped out in Houston, but then things changed. Of course you see more tropicals on the island than in Houston. But what did Houston look like in the early 1990's compared to now? Galveston will alwasy have a "leg-up" on Houston for the more tropical of plants because of the warming effect of Galveston Bay and proximity to the Gulf. Most of the Foxtails that I've seen in the central sections of the city got minimally burned on that one cold night back in February... they actually did better than I thought they were going to. This past Saturday I happened to drive by some of the larger Foxtails in the city (that I've aware of) on the SW corner of Stude & White Oak, across from Fitzgerald's. There are 5 or 6 of them there, some of them are about 17 feet, and they looked really good, growing in full sun, planted out by the sidewalk and street. In fact the person with me remarked that they are not even in a protected location. Very heavy trunks, and heavy fronds, they've been there 3+ years. The few big Royals (25') in town have been where they are for probably 4-6 years, they have that "heavy" look to them. One of them is in the back garden of a patio home, in a place where you could not get large equipement in to plant a tree of it's present size. Actually I've seen it for years when driving by, and always though it was a Queen Palm. I never dreamed that I was looking at a Royal until it got so big (and different from a Queen) that it literally hit me in the face one day! The first Royals I saw down at Moody Gardens planted along side one of the buildings as early as about 1999, but I wasn't ready for a big one in Houston. Something I hadn't mentioned so far is A. cunninghamia. For the past two years I'd been watching about 3 different plantings of them around the city. Finally beginning to take off and grow. This past February they had absolute minimal damage (I was surprised), but one day when driving through Bellaire (just inside the Loop) something told me to take a right, I drove one short block, and then I saw them... two A. cunninghamias, each about 20-24' tall. Beautiful! THis was back in April, and they didn't have any damage from cold... I bought a large one from Home Depot the next evening on my way home from work. By the way, I checked out your website, it's great! I was expecially knocked out by the Carpenteria, I love Carpentaria's... I had a number of them when I lived in Miami. Carpentaria's are really tender, so I never even tried to find any to plant here in Houston, that one in Galveston looked great. Did it burn last winter? Also loved the S. amara. I think that the palm that you wanated an I.D. on in the Moody Gardens section is a Livistona decipiens. You've may have noticed that a number of these have been planted along the Gulf Freeway between downtown and approximately Monroe. It's one of my favourite Livistona's and for some reason it's seldom brought in tho Houston. I do know of a nursery that has some nice 10 gallon size. I'm about to buy 4 to plant in my garden. What did you see Bismarkia's do last winter in the cold? The ones that I've see around Houston all came through with no problem, to minimal burn. I'm thinking about planting one of them as well. Take care, Jose

If it were me I would just get a red baron or mid pride peach tree on nemaguard or lovell rootstock. If you wanted to grow in a container the Bonanza would be a good choice. The Bonanza only grows to a height of 6 feet from what I have read. Just remember, a dwarf tree is one with low vigor, with less margin for error. Do not get a peach tree on Citation, a semi dwarf rootstock. I had three and they all had very low vigor that had many disease problems. Two died within 2 years and the third I had to put in a container to keep it alive. It has grown about 18 inches in two years. The rest of the peaches usually grows 4 to 6 feet. You can prune to keep the size smaller. With any peach tree you are probably going to have to spray for plum curculio( worm) and brown rot (fungus). I dont think the clay will be a problem as long as it does not stay saturated. You may also have to spray with dormant oil in the winter for scale.

Gardenias are a PITA, imo- I wouldn't start wtih them. If you do want to try, you'll need to extensively amend the soil you plant them in, most likely. In my experience, Plumbago hates being too wet, and likes a lot of sun to do well, so I'd not put it in a shady area. Turk's cap may do ok, but may not bloom too much due to lack of direct sun- and as others have said, see what neighbors with similar facing homes have, and what does well. I keep a little list on my computer of what I've seen, what type of year, and which direction and how much sun it gets (part/full). It's a great list when I have a dead spot to fill, and don't want to try something new, but go for somehting that has a really good chance of simply doing well. Also, if you have a local (non-chain) garden center, they may have someone who would be happy to suggest plants for your home. Bring a map of the house footprint, directions, and collaborate to form ideas of what might do well where!