Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

The truth of the matter is, all of the wax myrtle plants at the nursery probably do have berries, because they are all females. Customers generally do want the berries, because of the attractions to birds, and you may find it difficult to locate a male for purchase. The smaller size plants may simply not be mature enough yet to have formed berries. But since most nursery plants are cloned, in other words, grown from cuttings, all of them are probably exactly alike genetically, and all are females. What you are seeing now are the catkins, or blooms, which appear in the early Spring. Supposely, there is a difference in physical appearance between the blooms of the males and females.  We did try to find pictures showing the male or female plants in bloom, but they all failed to identify which was which. The best advice we can give you is to specifically insist on purchasing a male wax myrtle and two females. If the people at the nursery do not know the difference, their vendors certainly should. The stock at the nursery has likely been grown by a wholesale vendor, probably not even in Texas, and shipped to your nursery at the optimum time for Spring planting. If those plants are all females, and they have berries, you can bet the wholesale grower had male wax myrtles onsite. 

Perhaps you would have better luck with a nursery specifically geared to native plants. Go to our Native Plant Supplier section, type in your town and state in the "Enter Search Location" box and you will get a list of the native plant nurseries, seed companies and landscape and environment consultants. When we did this, we got a list of six nurseries, ranging from Dallas to Weatherford. All have phone numbers and maps, and some have websites. Someone should be able to either sell you or order for you a male wax myrtle.

We still feel that three plants will be sufficient for your 12 to 15 ft. space. Especially if you are planning to train the plants into multi-trunked small trees, they will have a fairly wide circumference pretty early. You don't want to crowd the plants too closely, as they will all need access to water, nutrients and sunlight. If they get too crowded as they mature, they can be pruned, but their nice rounded natural shape would be more attractive. Figure out how much space you have, and try for a 5' space, trunk to trunk.