These are some of the ugliest photos I have ever taken! From June through August, Houston has experienced daytime temperatures of 95 to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I watered the trees every other day but have put a pause on gardening during the summer. Surprisingly, Royal Rainier was the only cherry tree that still pushed out young shoots. Except the Hachiya persimmon tree, which had no damage, the rest had many brown leaves that eventually dropped. I planted or grafted the sweet cherry, persimmon and plum hybrid trees approximately 6 months ago. You can read more about them from my previous posts below: Stop Thinking and Start Growing Sweet Cherries Why Did My Persimmon Trees Die? Are Plum Hybrid Trees Easy to Grow in Texas?   Sweet Cherry Trees Compact Stella cherry tree, dying during the heatwave. Vandalay cherry tree, leaves dropped near the trunk.   Royal Rainier cherry tree also had brown leaves, but did better than other 2 varieties. Persimmon Trees Giant Fuyu persimm...

As Houston continued to burn in record heat, my garden looked really sad during this time of the year. All winter squash vines got roasted. Many tomato plants either have shown signs of blights or were already gone. Even the grass has turned brown. The jujube trees, on the other hand, were growing better than weeds. Both the Li and Shanxi Li jujube trees have flushed out flowers for the second time and still maintained their beautiful glossy, green leaves.   Jujube tree flowered the second time. Plant Profile Jujube is a deciduous tree that grows in zone 5 through 10 and requires little chill hours. From my experience, it does well in clay soil and has no problem with heat, drought or pests. The Shanxi Li jujube is self-fertile, but the Li only produces a few fruits by itself without cross pollination. The cons about growing jujubes are the tree has sharp thorns and its roots can be invasive. I heard the jujube roots can run and grow suckers over 20 feet from the tree. Since my bac...