Along the Gulf Coast, any fall foliage color we get doesn't begin to appear until December, but the fall garden is vibrantly colored with one third of our fruit harvest left to dazzle visually and tastefully. Fruit trees are the easiest way to introduce edibles into your ornamental garden and Houston-area gardens can produce fruit in every month of the year.

It's never too early to plan introducing fruit trees into your garden. Here are some varieties worth considering to brighten your garden in October alone.



Opal is a cold-hardy Mexican avocado. The medium-sized pear-shaped fruit is very rich tasting. The skin is green in color.

Wilma also is a cold-hardy Mexican avocado. The fruit is large in shape and has a very good flavor. The skin is black in color.

Fantastic has green, paper-thin skin and is the most cold-hardy of all Mexican avocados. The fruit has a creamy texture with fantastic flavors.

Joey is medium in size and egg-shaped. It has excellent flavor. This skin is purple-black in color.


Cara Cara Pink Navel has a color closer to that of a blood orange, and its flavor has a hint of grapefruit with the typical sweetness of a navel orange.

Marrs Early is a navel orange budsport relatively unknown outside Texas. It is commercially seedless, but seedy fruit can occur because of adjacent pollinizers. It bears heavy crops of very sweet, medium-fruit size.

Sanguinelli Blood is a unique orange having flesh that is purple rather than orange. Like other cultivars of "Sweet Orange," its growth rate is moderate making it perfect for containers. A gourmet citrus, the fruit has a distinctive flavor that's sweet.


Choctaw is a good yard tree because of its beautiful foliage, scab resistance and high yields of large, high-quality pecans.

Pawnee is an extremely early ripening variety. It is a medium-size pecan with good kernel quality. It appears to have a natural resistance to aphids, a leading pecan pest.

Desirable is a papershell nut, and the pecan kernel is loaded with a nutty flavor that is crunchy. It is perfect as a commercial orchard tree or as a shade tree in the garden.

Oconee is an extremely early ripening variety. It is a medium-sized pecan with good kernel quality and has natural resistance to aphids, a leading pecan pest.


Fuyu has a flat fruit that is crunchy when ripe. It is sweet, flavorful and a standard for non-astringent persimmons.

Saijo is a small, elongated acorn-shaped fruit and is astringent until ripe, then sweet with excellent flavor.

Brad Sample is a delicious, medium to small, astringent, conical persimmon that ripens late September to October.

Giombo is one of the most highly regarded astringent persimmons. Fruit size is medium to large and conical in shape. Fruit appearance and quality are rated very high.


Dobashi Beni is similar to Owari but with reddish tinge on skin. The sweet fruit have a "zipper" skin and are seedless. Satsumas all can withstand freezes to 22 degrees without much protection.

Owari is the original satsuma and has great flavor and production. The tree is moderately vigorous but slow-growing.

Seto is early maturing, high-quality dwarf satusma with large fruit. A more notable smoother and thinner peel than other dwarf satsumas.

Miho also is an early maturing, high-quality dwarf satsuma with large fruit. Its limbs are more upright than most satsumas.

If you haven't broken the handle on your bushel basket yet, there's more fruit to come before New Year's Day. Expect M mandarins, pumelos and more oranges, and satsumas in November; and grapefruit, kumquats, lemons and more M mandarins, oranges and pumelos in December.

