In 2011, my wife and I purchased a house on an acre of land in Texas, between Houston and the Gulf Coast. At the time, the back-yard contained one scrawny Live Oak, one dying Red Maple and ten small non-native fruit trees. Only two of the fruit trees produced fruit - an orange tree that produced intensely bitter oranges, and a peach tree that produced tiny tasteless peaches. I decided that I wanted the backyard to be filled with trees native to this area, and slowly removed all the non-native fruit trees, one by one. Since 2012 I have been planting southern native trees and now have a kind of "mini-arboretum" with over 50 different species, including 20 different species of Oak. You can click on the links above to access lists of all the species - on those pages you can find links to other pages dedicated to documenting the lives of each individual species.
As I didn't know much about trees before I moved here, I bought a guidebook and made a list of all the trees that grow naturally within about a 150 mile radius around my house. Without including trees that can be shrub-like, the list contains a total of 89 different species of tree. Of these 89 species, 3 of them are described as "large" (can grow more than 80 ft tall) - Bald Cypress, Loblolly Pine, and Pumpkin Ash. Eighteen of them are described as "medium to large". These are Shortleaf Pine, Longleaf Pine, Montezuma Cypress, Pond Cypress, White Ash, Black Walnut, Pecan, Bitternut Hickory, Water Hickory, Shagbark Hickory, Sweetgum, Eastern Cottonwood, American Elm, Cherrybark Oak, Nuttall Oak, Shumard Oak, American Sycamore, and Tulip Tree. A further 27 are described as "medium" (can grow between 50ft and 80ft tall), 21 are described as "small to medium", and 19 are described as "small" (less than 50ft tall). Only one of them is described as "small to large", the Black Cherry. Over the last few years I have been collecting and planting many of these trees, giving preference to larger species, and variety of species. Most of the local tree nurseries don't have much of a selection so I have had to order many of my trees via mail. The mail-order trees are generally spindly and the bare-root ones always have poor, damaged root systems. From the local tree nurseries I have purchased trees in pots of 1, 3, 15, 45, 65, or 95 gallons - I can manage to plant up to a 65 gallon tree on my own without help. Some of the trees have flourished in my yard, some of them are struggling to survive, and some of them never made it. This website tells the story behind each of the more than 50 different species I currently have in my back yard, as they develop and grow (or not) over the years.
In addition, I have created a page devoted to one corner of my yard where I have planted seeds that I collected over the years from various locations around Texas. Seeds which are growing nicely into seedlings and small trees are American Elm, Swamp Chestnut Oak, Shumard Oak, Burr Oak, Water Hickory / Pecan hybrid, Western Soapberry, Osage Orange, and Honeylocust. See the "Seedling Patch" link above for details. Another page is dedicated to my collections of the seeds, nuts, and acorns themselves. I also have a page where I have recorded details of my trees' heights and trunk circumferences over the years as they grow (also linked above). There is also a link above which describes the status of the health of each tree which I update every summer. Currently my top 15 favorite trees in my yard are listed below. They are growing well, and unfailingly healthy every year, and I don't have the same species in my North Carolina forest.
Bald Cypress(the one that was supposed to be a Montezuma Cypress)