Life & Death - Adding a Spiny Hackberry

After 4 months, I've taken this crapemyrtle (Laegerstromia indica) down to the level I've planned for

I've just now planted a spiny hackberry (Celtis pallida/C. ehrenbergiana) immediately behind it. Because it is so spiny, I have placed it at the back corner of my property where I won't routinely walk into it by accident.

I've been slowly taking down the crapemyrtle (Laegerstromia indica) that was in the southeast corner of my new yard ever since I moved here four months ago. It had obviously spent its life being brutalized by former residents and it was in terrible shape. I simply put it out of its misery. For some reason, many feel that topping a tree, like this crapemyrtle, makes it bloom heavier. It most certainly doesn't and it weakens its overall health at the same time. Plants sense up from down and recognize where their main leaders are. By doing so, they put most of their growth into the tips of their stems and roots. Hacking the top of a main stem off leads to mass confusion within the plant. It no longer has the certainty of which stem it should put its primary growth in and the side branches and dormant buds below the cut now all vie for dominance. This makes the plant "bushier", but it drains its energy as it now has to divide it up between all of the new competing stems. My crapemyrtle had obviously been brutalized many times over the years and it was not growing well.
Crapemyrtles are widely grown where I live in central Florida. They seem to take the place of subcanopy trees folks once grew up north before their move down here as they bloom vigorously and they do it in summer when color is less abundant in our landscape plants. I've never developed an aesthetic for them, however. Their bright show of color seems to attract very little attention among the pollinators I've watched and their seeds are of no particular interest to songbirds. To me, they are all show and no action. I would have killed this crapemyrtle even if it hadn't have been in such poor condition when I arrived here. I needed the room for something that would fit better in my concept of a living landscape.
I have cut it down to about three feet from the ground. The parts I sawed off are now drying in my small wood pile and I will add them to my fire pit the next time the temperatures dip low enough for a fire. The ash from this tree will eventually fertilize my landscape and provide much more value to it than the once-sad living tree. I decided to leave the rest of the lower trunks as pictured above. As these decay, they also will provide habitat for my wildlife. Insects will take up home in the dead wood and these will feed the songbirds I hope to eventually attract. As the centers of the trunks decay, they may also provide homes for bees and other small wildlife.
Dead trees are sometimes more alive than living ones. When I first moved to Florida, I sold off the mature queen palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana) in my front yard. A local nursery took them down for free for their eventual sale to someone who would appreciate them. In my mind, a queen palm is about as useless a tree as any routinely planted here in Florida. It's canopy does not provide the habitat that our native sabal palms (Sabal palmetto) do and their fruit are too large for any type of wildlife anyone would attempt to feed in a suburban wildlife landscape.  Perhaps if I were trying to feed feral hogs, it would have had value, but I've not yet met someone trying to feed these on purpose.
The lone queen palm in my backyard was behind a chain link fence and impossible to move, so I topped it with my hand saw and killed it. In less than a year, a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers carved a cavity in its trunk and the following year, a pair of flickers set up home inside it. The live tree was essentially dead to the living world; the dead tree became alive.
With the crapemyrtle now dead, I've planted another small tree immediately behind it - a spiny hackberry (Celtis pallida) - also known as C. ehrenbergiana or desert hackberry. Spiny hackberry is a state-listed endangered species in Florida and is known only within the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge south of me near Sanibel. Here, it occurs on old middens created by the early native Americans as they tossed out their clam shells. These small islands of shell and sand create a special microhabitat that allows spiny hackberry to persist. This small tree, however, is common in extreme South Texas and other parts of the Southwest. I grew mine from seed that was given to me by a wildlife refuge worker I contacted from there. I had done this once before and those trees thrived here in my landscape - in normal soil conditions. With my move, it was time to do that once more.
Spiny hackberry likely arrived in Florida because native peoples traded seed too. Unlike many other Celtis species whose fruit are dry, spiny hackberry produces a bright yellow succulent fruit that is good to eat. Birds relish it even more than I do. I've been growing this small specimen now for several years in anticipation of my eventual move away from Seminole. Yesterday I rewarded it by setting it free of its pot. One plant at a time. A living landscape does not occur without some planning and patience. I'm not too bad at planning. I'm notoriously bad at patience, but I'm learning.

The flowers of spiny hackberry are attractive to pollinators

Spiny hackberry is a small tree or a large shrub. It has a very contorted form which I appreciate. It also is quite spiny and that makes it as good wildlife cover plant. This specimen is growing in the desert and is not my photo.

The fruit of spiny hackberry is bright yellow and succulent.