By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star on April 16, 2002
This month, the Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas began Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!) to encourage homeowners, landscapers, and nurserymen to use more native plants. We chose the Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora secundiflora) to initiate the campaign, because it is a much-admired native that is readily available at local nurseries.
Texas mountain laurel is evergreen, needs very little water or fertilizer once established, is deer-resistant, and produces beautiful early-spring blooms. Some fine examples are in front of the Boerne HEB.
Little did we know that 2002 would see two record freezes in late February and early March. These late cold snaps did in most of the mountain laurel blooms for this spring, but that was unusual. Almost always you can depend on mountain laurels to usher in the spring blooming season with their showy flowers.
The flowers hang like a cluster of purple grapes and are highly fragrant. Some say they smell like grape Kool-Aid (when I was young, we said Grapette, but I guess that isn’t around any longer). I had an elementary school teacher who was afraid the strong fragrance would cause fainting in a closed room. When a pupil would bring her a gift of mountain laurel flowers, she would throw open all the windows and put the bouquet in a vase on the window sill.
After the blooms fade, pea-like seed pods develop. Mature seeds are bright red and rock hard. They are toxic, but I never heard of anyone being poisoned by mountain laurel beans. Undoubtedly that is because the seeds are so hard, they would break the teeth of anyone who tried to chew them.
Patty Leslie Pasztor says that some early Indians powdered laurel beans, also called mescal beans, to put into their ceremonial potions – until they realized the drink was killing people. That’s when they switched to peyote. As children in San Antonio many years ago, we called laurel beans “red-hots”. They were a source of delightful mischief as we walked home from elementary school. When we came to a laurel tree, we would find a hard mature bean and rapidly rub it on the cement sidewalk. The friction would heat the bean to fire hot. Then we would run up to a girl or little brother, touch the red bean to a bare arm, and yell, “Red-hot!”
Texas mountain laurels are slow growing, usually reaching a height of 6-12 feet after several years. Some may grow to 30 feet high. One of ours is eight feet tall and nine feet wide. The dark-green foliage is dense; so they can provide a good year-round screen. They can serve this purpose in place of common exotics such as ligustrum, red tipped photinia, or oleander.
All native plants need to be watered the first year they are planted, but once established mountain laurels do well on the normal rainfall without extra water. One thing that does kill mountain laurels is over watering. In times of drought, however, they do appreciate occasional deep watering.
Texas mountain laurels are adapted to well-drained limestone and caliche hills around Boerne, but apparently, they are tolerant of a wide range of soil types. For example, the pure clay bluff above Castroville is covered with mountain laurels.
Written instructions for planting and watering this Hill Country favorite are available free at the local nurseries which are participating in Operation NICE! These are Barkley’s Nursery Center, Boerne In Bloom Garden Center, Fair Oaks Nursery, Hill Country African Violets and Nursery, and Where Wild Things Grow (Leon Springs).
