Don’t know if the travel log is the best place to put this, but I did have to travel to Argentina to take these pics so I’m putting it here. Santiago del Estero has a hot, semi-humid climate with scorching summers but radiation frosts also occur in winter away from the city core. Most of the Argentine native trees grown there should do well in South Texas, the tougher ones should be usable all the way up to Corpus.

Tabebuia aurea, a tree that took some branch loss in the lower RGV in ‘21 but came right back

 

Tatane (Chloroleucon tenuiflorum). Looks like a giant tropical Texas ebony, they some had smaller stem damage in ‘21 in the Harlingen area but have outgrown it

Pterogyne nitens. Sort of like a tipu for hotter climates, undamaged in Brownsville in 2021.

Myrcianthes cisplatensis with its beautiful bark. Should have high cold resistance, probably better suited for slightly cooler climates

Jatropha macrocarpa, a very cool shrub from the arid Chaco

A large Bulnesia (Gonopterodendron) bonariensis with nasty monk parakeet crowding the shot. Has good potential for much of South Texas.

Young Diplokeleba floribunda. Hardiness not yet known, the related Astronium balansae was undamaged here in ‘21. Interesting wrinkled foliage

They had a lot of these, I suspect they might be Myrocarpus frondosus. No idea what they need but they appear happy in the Santiago heat.

Mimozyganthus carinatus, a Chaco legume I know nothing about

The more familiar Peltophorum dubium. A great flowering tree for nonalkaline sites in South Texas.

The Argentine form of Sapindus saponaria, don’t know how hardy it is.

 

Some other Argentine trees planted around the city:

Caesalpinia (Libidibia) paraguariensis is a beautiful tree of the Chaco well suited to South Texas with an attractive mottled bark. They are hardy into the upper teens

Crammed into a street planter

Closeup of trunk

Tree form of Tecoma stans. Seriously this thing gets big. Only seems to bloom once in the spring.

Various Ceiba speciosa blooming, most are very ornamental. 

Love this one:

Possible intergrade with C. chodatii (or maybe not)

Tabebuia (Handroanthus) heptaphylla, often mislabeled as impetiginosa. 

True impetiginosa has larger leaflets with little serration and thick dark furrowed bark on the main trunk. I suspect it might take more heat, drought and maybe a little more alkalinity than heptaphylla but haven’t been able to prove it yet. It can burn some out in the country when it dips into the low 20s but comes back fast.

Obligatory Jacaranda mimosifolia shot

Santiago has a decent UHI but out of the city the effects of frost are more noticeable. This is a benjamina growing in a neighborhood near the airport. If it had been completely in the open it would have been much more severely frozen (actually it wouldn’t survive the annual winter frosts out in the country).

 

Awesome stuff . The tree form Tecoma stans has a nice form...lots of potential? 

Awesome  post! Love seeing this stuff that may be adaptable to this strange S Texas climate where we have near perpetual warmth and humidity, oh wait except when we get a crushing freeze.  Also I love Argentina, have spent time there.  These offer a better analog for our climate than Australia it seems. 

20 hours ago, richtrav said:

Ceiba speciosa

My seed grown Ceiba speciosa (approximately 5 1/2 years old)...doubt it will bloom anytime soon, but I kind of like it as a bonsai.  Awesome pictures by the way.  I bet that was a fun trip.

5 hours ago, GoatLockerGuns said:

My seed grown Ceiba speciosa (approximately 5 1/2 years old)...doubt it will bloom anytime soon, but I kind of like it as a bonsai.  Awesome pictures by the way.  I bet that was a fun trip.

You ma be able to bloom Ceibas in pots, though maybe not in something this small..  A nursery i used to purchase from in Sarasota kept a few Bombax ceiba in  ..something like 36 or 48" sized pots and they flowered each year.. ( may have been started as cuttings though ) Trees themselves were kept to roughly 8ft in height ...Just tall enough to fit in the hoop house they kept them in. Have a couple C. rubrifloras ( ..or rubriflora crosses ) and some B. ceiba i'm going to try and container grow for as long as possible ..just to see if they'll flower in them..  White Pesudobombax e. i have has flowered in it's pot, so imagine these shouldn't be too different.

14 hours ago, Silas_Sancona said:

You ma be able to bloom Ceibas in pots, though maybe not in something this small.

I am not holding my breath, but my wife would love it if it did. 

It was kind of a "curiosity" germination that I didn't put a lot of thought into, and I always kept forgetting about it as a potted plan.  I struggled with keeping it healthy for years, and it either died back, or I had to cut it back, more than once (this thing could take a beating, and would still come back for more).  One day, I looked at the fat trunk and some new leaves coming out after a complete defoliation event, and I though "that thing has got that "bonsai" look.  A new pot, new soil, a little fertilizer, a new location and boom, a new bonsai.  It has been growing nicely as a bonsai for about a year now (in fact, this is the nicest it has ever looked really).  I just need to find a way to make the leaves grow smaller.

3 hours ago, GoatLockerGuns said:

I am not holding my breath, but my wife would love it if it did. 

It was kind of a "curiosity" germination that I didn't put a lot of thought into, and I always kept forgetting about it as a potted plan.  I struggled with keeping it healthy for years, and it either died back, or I had to cut it back, more than once (this thing could take a beating, and would still come back for more).  One day, I looked at the fat trunk and some new leaves coming out after a complete defoliation event, and I though "that thing has got that "bonsai" look.  A new pot, new soil, a little fertilizer, a new location and boom, a new bonsai.  It has been growing nicely as a bonsai for about a year now (in fact, this is the nicest it has ever looked really).  I just need to find a way to make the leaves grow smaller.

Not sure how ( or if ) you could get it to produce smaller leaves,  but found this online related to Floss Silk bonsai specimens flowering.. Pretty cool actually, even if i can only piece together bits and pieces of information written in another language..

https://cuencabonsai.net/2020/12/25/el-ceibo-ceiba-speciosa-palo-borracho/