The Orchid Tree, One Of My Favorites

Growing 25 to 30 feet, the Orchid Tree is a very popular ornamental tree in subtropical and tropical regions. It's a very hardy tree, withstanding drought and temperatures down to -22F.

It's non-native, but commonly found in California, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and Puerto Rico. Some folks have reported growing it successfully in New Mexico and Arizona. Its native range actually extends from India through China.

Orchid trees can handle full sun to partial shade and are deciduous, meaning they will lose some or all of their leaves. In fact, some will caution you to be careful where you plant your orchid tree because of the leaf and pod debris that can pile up quickly. If this bothers you, you may not want to plant it in a high traffic area or close to sidewalks.

The orchid tree grows very quickly and will do much better if the suckers at the base of the tree are kept pruned off at the bottom of the tree so that it grows as a single trunk tree. What my mother did was prune off the thinnest suckers and then she wound the thicker trunks together. In time, they grew together into one strong, thick trunk. Beautiful!

Although they are both called orchid trees, the Anacacho orchid tree actually isn't the orchid tree of which we speak here today, LOL. The Anacacho orchid tree is native to two locations (the Anacacho Hills, Kinney County, Texas, and in Coahuila, Mexico) and is also from the pea family.

It's a smaller tree, however, that grows 6 to 12 feet and blooms in showy clusters. It's a good patio tree though, plus it attracts butterflies! Now who knew two orchid trees that could grow in Texas, could be similar and yet so different!

This tree and the butterfly tree above were interchangeably referred to as "pata de vaca," or cow's foot, by my grandparents and others, because the shape of the leaves resemble a cow print.

The orchid tree blooms in Winter and Spring, which is part of its attraction ~ it blooms when most other trees don't. The flowers are three to eight inches across and could be creamy white, yellow, pink, red or purple in color. Most have a light, pleasant fragrance.

A small green pod can be seen in the center of the showy orchid tree flower. This gives a clue that this isn't really an orchid, but really a member of the pea family. On most orchid-trees, this grows into a long bean-like pod containing many seeds.