Texas Natives for Your Garden – Sage n Gaura

The berm that I have planted mostly with Texas natives has been alive with lovely pinks, blues and purples from the blooms of native prairie onion, spiderworts, phlox, mealy blue sage and guara for a few weeks now. While the first three plants listed only bloom during the spring, the mealy blue sage and the gaura will bloom on and off through fall, although their heaviest blooms for me are during springtime.

Mealy blue sage is a perennial whose clumps will expand and new ones may form for you from seed. Slight variations in flowers and flower stem color occur in the seed propagated new plants. The sage plants in the photos of this post are offspring from seed of plants that I dug with permission from a ranch in Cresson, TX. Many wonderful additions for your garden can be found in uncultivated areas. Before collecting any plants from the wild, please make sure that you have the property owner’s permission and that you are not digging any endangered species. You will find cultivars of mealy blue sage available in many nurseries.

While gaura is native to Texas, the pink variety as well as the white one in the accompanying photos are store bought cultivars rather than native transplants. This plant is often referred to as “whirling butterflies” in the nursery trade.

Even though my area is experiencing drought conditions, these Texas natives are holding their own and blooming wonderfully without any supplemental watering. I do keep the garden mulched to help conserve water, however planting the correct plant for your area goes a long way on cutting down or eliminating your garden’s water needs. Additional native and adapted plants from my North Texas garden can be found in my Texas Stars photo album on my Facebook business page.