Every year, a few of the Texas mountain laurels show up with pale purple or whitish blooms. They are such an oddity that they get snatched up quickly. I happen to be a sucker for white flowers - I think it was the white roses in The Great Gatsby when I was a teenager that did it - I just relate white flowers with romance. But don't you love how white blooms almost glow in the moonlight.
Well, last spring, we had a mountain laurel that bloomed white, white, WHITE! We've marked it and will begin playing with the seeds this year. There isn't much written on white blooming Texas mountain laurels. We've heard that they cross-pollinate so there's no guarantee what color trees produced from seed will bloom. We're still deciding on the perfect isolated spot to transplant her - and since we hope she's a big part of our little nursery, we do need to find a name for her. All suggestions are welcome!
Any luck with planting white blooming mountain laurel? I have a few beans from a consistently white-blooming Texas Mountain Laurel tree, and I'm hoping that plants grown from them will also produce the white blossoms. Any idea on the odds? I understand the white is VERY recessive...
ReplyDeleteFYI, after years of trial and error, I've finally found a very successful method of germinating the beans from regular purple-blooming trees. First I use my old trusty (slightly rusty) fence tool to GENTLY crack (without demolishing) the beans, then soak them in warm water. They double or triple in size overnight, then they're ready to plant.
We've gotten good germination of the seeds from the white trees BUT it will take about 4 years before they bloom and we know what color . . . . I may be retired before we get to 4 or 5 generations!
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