'Covey' is the only one I've grown - it was a lovely small tree that I had in a large container (a 3' round stock tank). It was about 4' tall and 5-6 years in the ground when a bunch of woodpeckers (or maybe just one determined one) decided to go after it and it was so deformed that I decided to euthanize it. One caution - redbuds by nature have copious crossing branches and in order to get an attractive form and not a tangled mass of branches I had to do quite a bit of ongoing pruning.

In Arizona your climate is a bit hot and dry for Cercis canadensis (Eastern redbud), which is 'Covey'. If you can find a weeper in Cercis canadensis var texensis or C. mexicana (may well be the same species; experts are divided) you will do much better as they can take the heat, sun and dryness.

one would presume that a local nursery.. would have stock that will survive locally ...

contact them.. and get the full latin name ... and you can research such from there ... or bring the info back here ...

the base problem is that there a couple different trees under the common name.. redbud ...

ken

I think my neighbor has an Eastern redbud, but it's not "weeping", at least I don't think it is. To be honest, I've never really paid much attention to it. It's on the far side of their house.

I thought if I put it out of the way, I'd try to sneak it by without going through committee. I've gotten approval for all of the other things I planted, but I'm afraid that if I wait for the committee, they'll be sold. If it doesn't block the view, I don't think anyone will have a problem with it.

Woodpeckers? Was there a worm that he was after? I'll keep that in mind.

I like pruning things, so the crossing branches are not a problem for me, but thank you for mentioning it

Do they have very big leaves? I've seen a few pics online that make it look like a kudzu vine.

The height of weeping redbud will depend if it is on its own roots as in my op pic in [brood of vipers [(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/brood-of-vipers-dsvw-vd~3570856)thread or a high graft which you can see if you scroll down that thread. Will they grow in Arizona? no clue.

I think the one I saw at the nursery is a "Lavender Twist".

All my plants are on drip irrigation. My yard guy doesn't plant anything for me without giving them water by drip. It is too hot and dry in the summer. We do get more rain in the summer than you might think. There's a monsoon season here that most people don't know about. The rains start, historically, on July 4th, and they cool things down a lot. June can be the hottest month of the year. Last year it got to 114 one day in June before the rains started. I'd just planted a weeping cherry and I think it suffered a lot then, poor thing. I hope it doesn't get that hot this year.

I think I know where I'll put it, next to the patio. There's a small corner that will block the view of it, partially, from the street and it's western exposure. But I'll be able to see it from the inside of the house.

Lavender Twist is a marketing device used to sell the 'Covey' redbud, these days plants put on the market by commercial concerns frequently have both an often jawbreaker cultivar name and a promotional handle attached (trademark or registered trademark - Lavender Twist in this instance). The "woodpeckers" were probably sapsuckers - but yes, it wasn't made clear what specific kind of damage was being talked about. Weeping trees often appear to be crashing into the ground if not placed behind ponds or at the tops of high enough walls, this may be why so many of them end up being limbed up and spoiled. Although there seems to be a general tendency to cut the bottom branches off of even quite small examples of decorative trees anyway, no matter how ridiculous or ugly it leaves them looking.

What do you mean by "limbed up"? I have a pretty artistic eye, so I can't imagine how cutting off the bottoms of the branches would look good.

However, if the tree really looks like a kudzu vine, I can see why people cut off the bottoms of the branches.

Bottom branches, not "bottoms of the branches".

I think my neighbor has an Eastern redbud

==>>> would you or your neighbor know a western redbud ....??? .. its the second part of the latin name that differs ....

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=western+redbud&t=ffcm&ia=about

i didnt try hard.. but i see no western weeping hybrid .....

i still suggest you call the nursery ...

limbing up ... means making the trunk show .... perhaps to be able to mow under a tree ... walk under it.. sit under it ...

many weeping trees ... are grafted on standards .... to give them height ... and then they weep down from there ... never really getting taller ... so if you look at this link.. the reason they look like unbrellas ... is that the weeping part was grafted onto a tall standard ... and most likely ... if any branches pop out from the trunk or the ground ... they may not be weeping ... and would need to be pruned off ...

standards: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weeping+redbuds&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images

other trees called weeping ... do continue to get taller .. and then the secondary branches weep down ...

also ... once the umbrella form hits the ground.. there are many ways to prune it to look better ..... notice at the link.. how different plants.. have the same basic weeping.. but different forms .... that is the owner.. with hand shears ...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weeping+redbud+tree&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images

ken

Yes they were sapsuckers per my birdwatching friends. And they just disfigured the thing so badly it wasn't worth saving. I mentioned it only to explain why I didn't have it any more - I didn't get rid of it because I didn't like it; I was sad to lose it.

I put it in the stock tank so that I didn't have to cut off the bottom branches; it was able to 'weep' very nicely over the edge of the tank. The pruning was at the top where there was a plethora of branches. Lots of weeping trees seem to share this characteristic - I take out about 25-30% of the branches from my Camperdown elms, too, to avoid the top of them looking like beaver dams.

Ken I've never seen a weeping C. Occidentalis. The only cultivar that I know is 'Alba', which I love because I'm not a big fan of pink.