With spring finally here, consider these flowering trees to brighten your landscape

My wife and I have been out running errands. I’ve been looking at trees and a dozen thoughts I wanted to share with you have been ripping through my mind like that final spin of the wash cycle. I’ve pressed the “Pause” button, and I’m going to jot ‘em all down.

▪ This a gorgeous year for our redbuds. I wasn’t so sure it was going to be. They were 15 days behind their normal schedule, but then again, almost everything else is as well. And then they started hitting full bloom just a few days ago.

For most of my career we’ve had the native eastern redbud with its many shades of pink, pale pink, darker pink, still-darker pink and then white. We were blessed with the deep burgundy “Oklahoma” redbud with rich wine-colored blooms, and then purple-leafed “Forest Pansy” redbuds.

In the past 25 years we’ve been presented with weeping redbuds, variegated redbuds and all manners of other redbuds. And they’re all out there looking just glorious right now. Use them where you need a small accent tree with a life span of 20 to 40 years.

▪ Flowering peaches have been at their prime in Fort Worth/Dallas and all the suburbs this past week. As we were driving down one street I spotted a yard filled with them. I thought it was a crabapple (a rare find locally due to cedar-apple rust and cotton root rot). We wheeled around and went back, and I realized the gardeners had planted two each of the different types: double-flowering white, pink, red and peppermint-bicolored ornamental peaches.

To answer the inevitable question, yes, these trees will probably produce peaches. The quality of the fruit won’t always be great, but the quality of the flowers will always be stunning. However, like all peaches and plums, flowering peaches are highly susceptible to peach tree borers. They’re the larvae that tunnel around inside the trunks near the ground line. They cut off supplies of water and nutrients before they can be taken up to the tops of the trees for normal use in photosynthesis.

Life expectancies of these lovely little trees is probably only 10 or 12 years. But, as one garden designer once told me, he uses them in his landscapes because they bring bright color to the landscape at a time when it’s vitally needed. They can be replaced very easily when the time comes.

▪ Magnolias have already been in bloom locally, and more are on the way. We’re talking ultimate class in our spring-flowering trees when we mention magnolias. The first to flower is always saucer magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana). Mistakenly referred to as “tulip tree” by some gardeners, that’s another species entirely. The true tulip tree is Liriodendron tulipifera.

Saucer magnolias are actually more like large deciduous shrubs, growing to 15 to 20 feet tall and wide. They do best in deep, highly organic soils that are neutral or slightly acidic.

Shallow white rock subsoil is their enemy because they need high levels of iron, and the caliche rock ties up soluble iron. It’s best in those cases to remove 18 to 24 inches of the topsoil and replace it with sandy loam topsoil. Keep your tree moist at all times.

Saucer magnolias do best where they have protection from the hot afternoon sun and where they can be sheltered from late-winter freezes that often catch their early buds and blooms.

The far more common and beautiful southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) are about to undergo their significant annual changes. They’ll soon start dropping quantities of leaves as they make the changeover from 2021 foliage to new growth for 2022. Old leaves will develop yellow and brown spots before they start to fall. Gardeners will become nervous, but please hear my voice of experience telling you that it’s really no problem. Apply an all-nitrogen lawn food, and water the trees deeply. The new growth will look great. Just be sure that the lawn food has no weed-and-feed aspect. Magnolias are particularly sensitive to herbicides. I’ve seen 50-year-old trees killed by weed-and-feed products.

If you’re in the market to plant a southern magnolia into your landscape, consider your options. There are some great improved types out on the market today.

Smaller city lots will benefit from “Little Gem.” It grows to be about half the height and width of regular southern magnolias at maturity, reaching 35 feet tall and 25 feet wide. Its leaves and its flowers are half-sized as well.

Smaller still is “Teddy Bear,” growing to be 15 to 18 feet tall and 12 to 15 feet wide.

The variety “D.D. Blanchard” grows to 50 feet tall and 30 feet wide. Its claim to fame is its beautiful rust-colored pubescence on the backs of its leaves.

You can hear Neil Sperry on KLIF 570AM on Saturday afternoons 1-3 p.m. and on WBAP 820AM Sunday mornings 8-10 a.m. Join him at www.neilsperry.com and follow him on Facebook.

This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 5:30 AM.