By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star in May 2006
This is the perfect time to promote goldenball leadtree (Leucaena retusa) as Plant of the Month for Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!). This small tree currently is at the height of its bloom period, and it is having a good year. The drought seems to have agreed with it.
Goldenball leadtree is a small tree or large shrub, generally about 6 to 12 feet high, with multi trunks and light-green airy foliage. It is a legume with the acacia look, but without thorns.
It is an attractive foliage plant most of the year, but during the late-spring bloom period, goldenball leadtree lives up its name. It puts on numerous bright-golden-yellow “puffball” flowers an inch across. They brighten the landscape.
Our two 12-foot high goldenball leadtrees seem genetically programmed to flower at slightly different times. One is now in full mature bloom, and the other is covered with immature greenish spherical buds. This lucky circumstance gives us an extended period to enjoy the goldenball flowers every spring.
Goldenball leadtree is a Texas native found in the wild in the western part of the Edwards Plateau and the TransPecos area, as well as in New Mexico and northern Mexico. The University of Texas herbarium includes specimens also from the eastern margin of the Edwards Plateau in Comal, Blanco and Travis Counties. It is no surprise, then, that goldenball leadtree does very well in gardens of the Boerne area.
The ones I’ve seen in the wild in Uvalde County grow in unshaded and well-drained sites, fairly harsh conditions. The goldenball leadtrees in our yard thrive in full sun and do not get irrigation nor fertilizer. The heavy rains two years ago almost did them in, but slowly they came back to health when drier weather returned. This dry year they look better than ever.
Goldenball leadtrees need to be caged to protect them from deer browsing. The Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas provides free planting and care instructions for goldenball leadtrees at nurseries participating in Operation NICE! (Hill Country African Violets and Nursery, Barkley’s Nursery Center, and Maldonado Landscape and Nursery).
What’s Blooming This Week
Our backyard is sort of a zoo of NICE!-type plants. In the interest of showing the continuously changing color that native-plant gardens provide, I promised to report once or twice a month which Texas native and native-compatible plants are blooming in our backyard.
White: fox-glove penstemon, blackfoot daisy, Anacacho orchidtree, antelope-horns milkweed, ox-eye daisy, guajillo, arroyo sweetwood (Mexico), white-top sedge, and water lily.
Red: red yucca, Salvia greggi, columbine, coral honeysuckle, Indian blanket, and pinkroot (deep East Texas).
Pink or purplish pink: fox-glove penstemon, purple cone flowers, limestone gaura, Drummond phlox, evening primrose, rose pavonia, and orchidtree (Mexico).
Yellow: goldenball leadtree, Texas green-eyes, Engelmann daisy, bush sunflower, zexmania, coreopsis, straggler daisy, yellow coral honeysuckle, lantana, and damianita.
Greenish yellow: smoketree
Blue: mealy sage, Engelmann’s salvia, indigo spires (cultivar), Salvia guaranitica (South America), pickerelweed, and a few pitiful bluebonnets.
