austin_t You most likely have a few inches of blackland clay top-soil on top of caliche/limestone. Some spots will have 1-2' of blackland clay topsoil, but most don't in Killeen. Dan, lucky, and Lou's suggestions are good ones for this area. Have never actually seen a planted Lacey Oak do well. But there are many examples of Shumard and Bur Oaks doing well here, as well as Pecan, Shantung Maple, and Monterry Oak as mentioned. A few others to consider are Live Oak, Eastern Red Cedar, and Arizona Cypress for evergreen trees. Also Chinese Pistachio, Mexican Plum, Big Tooth Maple, and White Ash for deciduous trees with some fall color. Cedar Elm also does well and sometimes has good fall color.

HI everyone This may look like a late reply but I've just come accross this post! I'm from paris France and an avocado tree lover too!! Most people will shoot graft a very young avocado tree, about eighteen inches tall. Just cut the top off the tree, split the trunk in half for about two inches, cut the scion in a long vee shape, and insert it into the cut. Wrap the graft with a long 1/4 inch wide rubber band. The scion is best when it is the same diameter as the trunk. You can do it with a bigger tree but then you'll have to graft onto smaller branches!!! Now if anyone has access to an avocado tree (Mexicola, HAss, Bacon.... ) and could help me out and send me some cutting so I can try grafting my trees started from seed I'd definitely be grateful!!!!!!!!! Let me know... feel free to send a mail!

I personally favour a maple of some sort, possibly a Japanese Maple. Click on the link below for more info. There are plenty of other trees to look at as well. Just remember to make sure you leave enough room for your Jacaranda to expand! Cheers, Dee. Here is a link that might be useful: Winterhill tree farm

Thanks for the reply. Greg. So I suppose that means that Trigonia carbonaria is on the long list Australian natives due for extinction, together with all those plants which refuse to be germinated by anything else but their specific little bee. With the push to introduce bumblebees into mainland Australia (so we can buy cheaper tomatoes. They'll never escape from the greenhouses, will they - even though they've done it already in Tasmania!) we do urgently need government money spent on research into insect pollination of natives. The pollinators of the vast majority of our plants are just not known. Wooroonooran, your comment that "To do the right thing, everyone must plant only what occurs/ed in the Regional Ecosystem/s that occur/s on their property, otherwise they are introducing a plant to a new location where it shouldnt be" is very much to the point. My comments are: First - if we knew more about our local natives, we might find that there are more gardenworthy plants among them than we had realised, and choose them more where we're happy to have any old plant so long as it has the characteristics we want - feature tree, good screen, and so on. The difficulty, in such a large country, is finding the information as to what is locally native. One needs to be quite proactive to get hold of it, especially outside the capital cities. General books on growing Australian natives can leave us with a false impression. People who have picked pretty plants out of such books in the belief that they are doing the right thing by the environment, and then find themselves copping heaps from those with higher knowledge, are understandably cheesed off. Second, we all like to grow introduced plants. There is really no difference, in a ecological sense, between growing roses and poinsettias, Norfolk Island pines, Lord Howe Daisies, and Kangaroo paws in Queensland, or even in growing plants that ocur naturally just a few hundred kilometres away. We all try (I'm sure) not to grow the obvious weeds from other parts of Australia. It is more environmentally correct to grow exotic plants that we feel are not going to escape into the bush. However, as long as gardeners garden, there are going to be some apparently "safe" plants that will turn round and bite us on the bum 20 years later. We can only do what seems right at the time, keep an ear to the ground for new discoveries re weed potential, and be prepared to remove garden favourites when their dark side is first glimpsed, rather than insist on complete proof. Thirdly, much of what gardening is, is to plant things from elsewhere. I don't mind this where people can choose a Australian plant because they really want that plant. What gives me trouble is the "natives" that are planted in good faith by so many Austalians including me, because we are restricted to the easily available plants in nurseries. In the case of Eucalypts, a local native gumtree might do the job just as well, AND be...