I try to keep our Friday Profiles to the four P’s: People, Places, Products and Plants. I’ve noticed, though, that we haven’t focused on many plants lately, so I will rectify that with a look at one of the greatest smelling flowering small trees – one that’s also booming like crazy right now.
In fact, I’m getting lots of email from people wanting to know more about the Texas Mountain Laurel (Calia secundiflora) and why this beautiful plant smells so awesome.
The Texas Mountain Laurel is well-known for its pendulous clusters of purple, fragrant flowers that look as great as they smell. This popular plant is often used as a flowering, evergreen shrub. But, with time and proper pruning, it can be trained to grow as a small, multi-trunked tree.
The Texas Mountain Laurel grows slowly from 8 to 15 feet tall with a 6-10 foot spread. Its multiple trunks support a canopy of glossy green leaves. In the spring, it produces bright purple, drooping clusters of flowers which have a sweet fragrance that resembles grape Kool-Aid. By mid-summer, the flowers fade and give rise to fuzzy, tan seed pods. The small, orange seeds are poisonous, but the seed pods and the seed coats are hard and fairly difficult to crack.
I believe this plant is native to Mexico, New Mexico and the Texas Hill Country, which is why it can take our high summer temperatures and stay evergreen-looking. It prefers all-day sunshine and can actually excel in alkaline, almost rocky soils. But it has to have good drainage. Drowning the root system in too much organic matter that never dries out may be about the only way to kill it. In other words, keep it away from peat moss-based soils. It mixes well with cactus and other desert-adapted plants, adding a unique color, texture and fragrance to the landscape.