Situation
South-facing two-acre lot in Stone Oak. A previous owner had cleared the mature canopy — the one improvement nobody can install in a season — and replaced it with Bermuda turf and a polite perimeter of ornamental crepe myrtles. The current owner was burying plant material every summer and paying $480 a month to irrigate the funeral.
Observation
We took surface temperature readings at noon on August 19, 2025, with the sun doing its level worst. Bare caliche: 142°F — a griddle with property taxes. Established Bermuda: 119°F. Native canopy shade, a hackberry and live oak grouping near the eastern fenceline: 87°F. The thermometer did not editorialize. It did not have to.
What we learned
Fifty-five degrees separated bare ground from native canopy. That is the line between soil that holds water and soil that bakes it off before the roots are consulted. The crepe myrtles were not dying of bad planting; they were dying of bad address. You can plant a thing correctly into the wrong thermal world and still attend its funeral. The property did not need more plants. It needed shade first — the unfashionable purchase that makes every fashionable one survive.
In Hill Country, every dollar in established canopy is worth roughly seven dollars in irrigation avoided over a 10-year horizon. Plant for shade before planting for ornament.