It looks wonderful. Give it another year.

After 14 years in gravelly rocky soil, it might be a bear to get out.

I have a small 1x1 shrub that has been low maintenance. How big is your plant and why were you thinking of removing?

I'm kinda' with Lisa. I don't tend to keep plants that look bad or sad for any length of time, but my yard is small.

Mara, you commented on it in another thread, but I'm still wondering how the red Baha fairy duster would do for you. It freezes to the ground almost every year, (didn't this year) but has always come back even after the coldest winters and blooms ALL summer. Anybody in a more northern environment than San Antonio grow it with success?

I had the pink one years ago, but it didn't bloom much. I tried to move it to an area with more sun thinking that might be the problem. But it died even though I got a lot of root ball when I dug it up.

Roselee mine was skimpy at first but getting more and more floriferous. In s dryish full sun area of my garden

I believe this plant is a rare native species of thornless shrub mimosa. http://www.wildflower.org/expert/show.php?id=5542 says this about it:

Fairy Duster, False-mesquite Calliandra, Texas native Pink Mimosa, Pink-flowered Acacia, Huajillo, Plumita, Gavia
Calliandra conferta

Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

Your pink 'Fairy duster' is Calliandra conferta. An uncommon native plant that is becoming less numerous every year. My TX Native Plants Botany prof said it is also one of 5 or less thornless pink Mimosa-like plants to grow anywhere on the planet! Because of its mimosa-like appearance while also being thornless and drought tolerant, this plant is in much higher demand than supply. Which of course tempts people to collect it from the wild, which only makes it more rare. It can be found in E TX but is uncommon in W TX where it also used to be abundant, and its status of hard-to-find in W TX is likely due to land development rates, combined with overcollection of this plant from W TX lands.

"small shrub with ferny, bi-pinnate foliage and flowers
that look like fluffy white balls appearing from March to June and
sporadically through fall. It resembles Mimosa sp., but lacks their
thorns. It grows in rocky limestone soils and caliche in the
Trans-Pecos, South Texas Plains, and Edwards Plateau. Generally under
one foot high, and with its showy blooms and airy foliage, fairy duster
is a good choice for dry desert [and xeriscape] gardens with limited space. It can
tolerate some shade, but will flower most profusely in full sun. Its
dense root system provides erosion control, and hummingbirds are
attracted to the flowers. Fairy duster is hardy to 15 degrees F."

So for the sake of preserving this valuable and uncommon plant from further decline and maybe eventual extinction, I really hope you let it stay. Oh, and if it makes babies or if you decide to get rid of it, then please let me come rescue it! :) I'd be very happy to give it a home in my native Xeriscape if you do ever want it gone. Maybe, you can make a small fortune by propagating it for sale? Just a thought. :)

I've got one Calliandra conferta, but the flowers I've seen on it don't look that big and showy. I didn't dig it up...just threw a few seeds down taken from plants I'd seen in the wild. Didn't know it was now considered rare. I used to see lots of them!

It has never made a baby. I paid not much for it from Barton Springs nursery. It is in full sun, no soil but rocks and marl. I think I took a look at the red one and it said it was a Z9 plant. It is knee high and a 3 foot circle if I guess right, This picture gives a better sense of size

Linda, they have never been this showy till this year.

OK,Decision made. The show buys it another year of life. I mean, the soil is wet now and diggable and there is NO WAY that I will dig up a flowering plant. That is against all rules of gardening morals. I would be taken to the Nuremberg and put on trial for crimes against plants. Maybe they would move the trial to Kew Gardens.

A mimosa flower is what I thought of when I saw that. Glad to hear it is related.

Although it hasn't made babies nearby, but that could be because of the surrounding soil. Does it make seeds that you could harvest?

And if it begins to bloom and get showy around Dec-Jan, perhaps there is another time that it is near dormant and that would be a better time to relocate it or even split it.

Mara, you are so right, It would be the trial of the century and pictures to prove it ... LOL!

If they moved the trial to Kew Gardens, does the condemned gardener get a last stroll down the paths at sunrise?

Hmmm, that could probably be arranged and might make it all worth while, at least for me it would. Only way I'd ever get there ... ;-)

There are some seeds forming on it.

Wantonamara,

Would you have any seeds available from yours to trade?

Xtal

The seeds are hard to collect There are not many viable seed and they pop. I need some organza bags. Also it is long past the seed collecting time.I will try next time.

That's true, about not many being viable. I had to really look hard for the seeds I brought out here. Many are eaten into by insects or just don't develop into full-size seeds in the first place. There's plants out by the Medina Lake dam area that I collected from and I've seen them elsewhere also on my many hikes through the years. I very rarely hike anymore. My plant didn't make any viable seeds this year.