I live in Austin, not in San Antonio, and I garden on caliche/limestone. While I've never gardened on sand, I have a friend and a co-worker who have. One in Bellville and one in Dale, Texas whose husband is actually a farmer. Given the choice, I'd pick the sand. Where I live, I have about 3-5 inches of soil over caliche. In some places it's hard rock. The amount of topsoil you have various with location. Planting anything in caliche is a pain. It takes a breaker bar and an hour or so to dig a fair sized hole. As Linda mentioned, she grows many things in raised beds and I have begun to do so too after learning the hard way. I also have fruit trees--a fig and a native persimmon--planted in the caliche 8 years ago, and they have only grown about two feet in that time. They are both only about five-six feet tall. They should be taller. The fig and the persimmon produce, but they are stunted. I also have an American Beauty Berry planted in 2000 that has not grown at all in all of that time. It has three branches and is 2 feet tall but should be 6 feet tall. My friends who grow on sand seem to have healthy plants. They do have to add a lot of soil ammendments and water because everything seems to go through the soil, but at least their plants are able to put down deep roots. On the positive side of caliche, my house foundation, fence posts, and clothesline posts have never moved. It's the only positive thing I can say about the stuff.

Hi linda_tx8 and patriotizm. Yes, NPSOT is selling a variety of native plants that are from a commercial supplier. We don't have the capacity at present to propagate large numbers of plants ourselves. However, we are organizing a native plant & seed exchange. You are invited to bring natives in pots (as small or as large as you like), labeled with plant name if possible; or bring labeled packets of native seeds. You can exchanges what you have for what you don't have. Some of the plants for sale will be American beauty berry, baby blue eyes, blackfoot daisy, Brazos penstemon, cedar sage, frog fruit, Gregg's mistflower, mountain sage, pigeonberry, wood ferns, wooly butterfly bush, and others. --Bea Caraway, NPSOT-SA president Here is a link that might be useful: NPSOT-SA

Still nothing in the ground yet--what dismal weather. Lots of pros and cons to weigh here, like "how much water is this sucker going to need?" Many of the recs don't seem to be locally available, and I don't have the patience to start from seed. Tentatively, I have in mind to put a Philippine violet in the far left corner, then flank it with plumbago. A cigar plant, maybe, in the near left corner. Then, a border of Mexican heather across the front (I know they're hit or miss on coming back.) A couple of blue and black salvias (black and blue? whatever) in the far right corner. (I'm still undecided on these--an 'old hand' told me today they don't bloom well here.) A couple of cedar salvias along the right border. Inside this perimeter, an oblong configuration of pavers. Inside the oblong, butterfly iris on one side (I have a huge clump that needs dividing) and on the other a betony. I'm totally stumpted on the near right corner, and finishing the right side. Has anyone tried these perennial geraniums? Frustrating, how disappointing some things can be close up and personal, when they looked so seductive in photos.

scotjute thank you for relating your observations. It stands to reason that certain species of elms would develop differently in various growing conditions and climate. I've been to Lost Maples many times, but I was mostly looking at the maple trees growing there as well as the birds and other wild life and wasn't paying attention to the elms. Incidentally, today I came upon a similar elm tree about two blocks away as the one pictured above. It also has leaning multiple trunks and gold/orange leaves, but has seeds; most of which are still clinging to the tree. The leaves on both are only slightly larger than my Cedar Elm (see below) which is just now starting to turn yellow. ... Below is a photo of my 32 yr old Cedar Elm taken today. It happens to have a more spreading form than many of the wild growing trees around San Antonio. ... NHBabs, Wow! I wasn't aware there were so many varieties of elms growing in the US.Thank you for the link to the chart. Thanks to everyone for their input. Other than my curiosity I guess it would only be important to know the variety of elm if one were looking to find one like it to plant.