FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FLOWER MOUND, Texas- Land Care Garden Center is using the final weeks of North Texas summer to encourage area homeowners to start planning fall tree and shrub planting rather than waiting until temperatures actually drop. The company says the same thought crosses most Flower Mound area homeowners' minds every August, that a yard could use more shade, but the thought often fades once fall arrives and the moment to act on it passes. Land Care Garden Center, a family owned and operated retail garden center at 1616 Arrowhead Drive in Flower Mound, is using this stretch of the calendar to walk the yard now and make a plan before the fall planting window opens.

Late Summer Is A Planning Window, Not A Planting One

August in North Texas is still too hot for most new planting, but it is the right time to identify where a tree is missing. Land Care Garden Center recommends homeowners walk their property in the early morning or evening, when the sun angle shows clearly which parts of a yard bake through the afternoon with no relief. Areas where grass struggles, where outdoor furniture sits unused in summer, or where a west-facing wall radiates heat into the house are common candidates for a shade tree. Identifying those spots now, while the problem is obvious, gives a homeowner a head start once the planting window opens in September, rather than trying to remember in October which corner of the yard felt unbearable back in August.

Fall Planting Runs From September Into Mid-December

Land Care Garden Center points to fall, not spring, as the better planting season for trees and shrubs in North Texas, and defines that window specifically: warm soil from September through December continues supporting root growth even as the top of the tree goes dormant, so a tree planted in the fall enters its first North Texas summer already established. The garden center keeps trees and sod moving right up until mid-December for this reason. A tree planted in October or November spends the cool season building roots below ground before it has to support new top growth the following spring, an advantage a comparable spring-planted tree will not match until well into its first summer. Homeowners who wait until spring to plant are not making a mistake, the garden center said, but they are giving up months of root development they cannot get back.

Species Choice Narrows Once Clay Soil Enters The Conversation

Much of the ground around Flower Mound sits on heavy, alkaline clay that drains slowly when wet and turns hard when dry, conditions that cause many commonly sold trees to struggle or discolor over time. That struggle rarely shows up in the first year. A tree planted in the wrong soil typically survives its first season looking fine, then spends the next several years yellowing between the leaf veins or simply failing to grow, long after the return window on the purchase has closed. Land Care Garden Center's trees and shrubs are selected specifically to avoid that outcome. Live Oak is essentially evergreen and nearly indestructible once established, though it demands patience and builds slowly toward a mature spread of 40 to 60 feet. Shumard Red Oak grows faster and delivers genuine red fall color where most North Texas trees simply turn brown, reaching 50 to 70 feet on a tall, stately form. Cedar Elm, a true Texas native that grows wild in the region's river bottoms, offers small, neat leaves, golden fall color, and a toughness in clay and drought that the garden center calls underrated and underplanted.

Planting Technique Determines Whether Any Of That Potential Gets Realized

Land Care Garden Center said the species a homeowner chooses only matters if the tree goes into the ground correctly, since clay soil punishes planting mistakes that lighter, better-drained soil tends to forgive. The most common error is digging too deep: a hole cut deeper than the root ball, rather than wide of it, effectively creates a bathtub in clay that fills with water and slowly drowns the roots. The fix is to dig two to three times the width of the root ball but no deeper than the ball itself, set the root flare, where the trunk widens at its base, slightly above the surrounding grade so water sheds away rather than pooling, and backfill with the same native clay that came out of the hole rather than rich, imported soil, since roots need to grow into the ground they will actually live in rather than circle inside a softer pocket. A two to three inch mulch ring pulled back from the trunk finishes the job, followed by deep, slow watering once or twice a week through the tree's first two summers, favoring a long trickle over an hour rather than a quick daily splash that never reaches the deeper roots.

Oak Wilt Adds One Seasonal Rule That Applies To A Single Species

Beyond general planting care, Land Care Garden Center flags a caution specific to oaks: they should not be pruned from February through June, the window when oak wilt spreads most easily and a fresh cut becomes an entry point for infection. An oak wounded during that window can decline over the following seasons in a way that is difficult to reverse once it takes hold, so the garden center recommends saving oak trimming for the coldest and hottest parts of the year and sealing any cuts made outside that window. The garden center's full guide to shade trees for North Texas clay covers this alongside the complete planting process and additional species suited to the region's soil.

Garden Center Points To Honest Guidance Over A Quick Sale

Land Care Garden Center said its planning conversations start from the same principle that guides the rest of its retail business: telling a customer when a plant will not survive in a given spot, even if that means a smaller sale. Many homeowners start with one or two priority trees in a given fall rather than replanting an entire yard at once, and staff said that measured approach usually produces a better outcome than a large project rushed to beat the calendar. Homeowners planning a larger project involving professional installation are directed to the garden center's sister company, Land Care Landscape Management, while those planting on their own can shop the same mature, landscape grade inventory that company's crews use.

Land Care Garden Center encourages homeowners to walk their yard in the coming weeks, identify where a tree is missing, and bring photos of the space to the garden center or call ahead with questions about species and placement before the fall planting rush begins in earnest. The garden center can be reached at (972) 992-1660 or through its Business Profile, and staff are available Tuesday through Saturday to talk through a specific yard before the September planting window opens. The trees that hold up best in Flower Mound area yards, the garden center said, are consistently the ones a homeowner planned for during the summer rather than picked on impulse once the weather finally turned, and the garden center continues stocking mature, clay-proven trees and shrubs through the extended planting season that runs into December.

Contact Information:

Land Care Garden Center

1616 Arrowhead Dr
Flower Mound, TX 75028
United States

Contact Land Care Garden Center
(972) 992-1660
https://landcaregardencenter.net