In a normal year, more blooming and other plants would be providing color than what we are seeing so far this year. The plants that are doing their part contributing to the 12 months of color that ...

The most noticeable blooms in my neighborhood are on Texas mountain laurel and redbud, but the cemetery iris, bluebonnets, larkspur and rain lilies are also blooming. Last year, mountain laurels ...

Dear Neil: What would be stripping leaves off my mountain laurel? It happened about this same time last year. A: From your photos and from my many years of growing Texas mountain laurels, my guess ...

Dear Reader: This is called “fasciation.” It involves plant tissues that divide in two dimensions. You may be familiar with the common annual flower called cockscomb (Celosia). Flowers of many ...

Q: I have had two mountain laurel bushes for 15 years . Suddenly last fall, one dropped its leaves. The stems were green and it is starting to bloom and add some new leaves. The other bush had some ...

DEAR NEIL: I am attaching photos of my damaged Texas mountain laurel. Some type of insect is boring holes and killing it. What can I do to save this tree, also hopefully to keep the problem from ...

Dear Neil: Is it possible to influence the flower color of my Texas mountain laurels? They bloom light blue. I'd like to find something I could put on them to get darker blue flowers. A: Unfortunately ...

Editor's Note: Senate Bill 1868 no longer contains the list of plants described below. These plants, including mountain laurel, were struck from the legislation prior to Senate Bill 1868 being voted ...

Q: Why would a mountain laurel lose leaves and start to tilt? I have two others, and they seem to be doing fine. A: That sounds like drought damage. Even venerable native Southwest Texas plants can ...

A regional tollway authority will spend $1 million on 55 small, native Central Texas trees for Austin Memorial Park Cemetery. Under federal law, the cemetery was supposed to get a sound wall during ...

Dear Neil: We have two Texas mountain laurels that have been in the landscape for five years. They bloomed the first year, but they haven't bloomed since. What can we do to get them to flower? A: That ...