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Wednesday - April 30, 2014

From: Fort Worth, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Trees
Title: Location of pine trees for a wedding site in Grapevine TX
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Okay, I know this is a long shot. My daughter is getting married in Grapevine, October 18 at sunrise. She REALLY wants to have the ceremony near pine trees. Any suggestions for locations in Grapevine that have pine trees?

ANSWER:

We tried first checking on pines that grow natively in Texas, in hopes we would run across a pine native to Tarrant County. There are 41 members of the genus Pinus native to North America and 10 native to Texas. We checked every single one of that 10 on the USDA Plant Profile Maps and they were all native either in far West Texas in the Big Bend area or far East Texas in their sandy soils. Some years ago, this member of the Mr. Smarty Plants Team lived in Arlngton, and there was a maverick stand of pines in a traffic island at the intersection of Davis and Park Row. We have not been back there since 1998, so for all we know those trees have been sacrificed to better traffic flow and it was no place for a wedding, trust me.

When training for Master Gardeners, we met and did volunteer work in the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. There were many weddings there, but we don't specificallly recall any stands of pines, nor could we find a taxa list for the Botanic Gardens to see if they had any pine groves. Here is a link to information on Weddings at the Ft. Worth Botanic Gardens.

Another possibility is that you might check with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Office for Tarrant County. A stand of pines in that area might well be rare enough to be known to the staff at that office. Our only other idea is to check with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce.

Beyond that, we happen to know there are some lovely Pinus edulis (Colorado pinyon pine) stands in the mountain ranges in Bernalillo (Albuquerque) and Santa Fe Counties in Central New Mexico. The weather would probably still be pretty good in October and the sunrises there are stunning. Heck of a long drive from Grapevine, though.

From the Image Gallery

Colorado pinyon pine
Pinus edulis