Dig Native Plant Month (April) by Planting Some Native Plants in Your Garden

Native plants make great choices for your garden. They are usually more insect and disease resistant and better adapted to your climate than non-native species. They also are more likely to benefit local wildlife populations. Hurray for the U.S. Senate passing a resolution declaring Apr, 2021 - National Native Plant Month.

Fragrant prairie phlox is a perennial that I have growing on one side of the berm in my backyard when we had a waterfall installed. It is a true Texan, transplanted from a pasture an hour or so away. It has established itself and does not require any additional water. Its leaves appear when rains return in the fall and blooms profusely for several weeks this time of year and goes dormant over the summer. It spreads by underground stolens.

Giant spiderworts are another plant I brought to my waterfall berm garden from the wild. They flower in a wonderful assortment of colors, hot pink and various blues and purples. They reseed easily but if you do not want more plants, just cut off the seed heads when they're done blooming. They also go dormant during the summer and do not need watering once established.
The last two native plants I am featuring are wild on my property. I mow around pink evening primrose. I learned the hard way that if you do not, it gets unhappy and dies out. The blue-eyed grass is a bit more resistant to being mowed. It is a tiny member of the iris family. I do mow around them this time of year to make sure I get to see their flowers which open up when it gets bright enough during the day. (Note: This blue-eyed grass plant was in my garden, but they do not usually last long as they don't seem to like mulched gardens.)

Planting Choices to Attract Birds to Your Landscape

I have written about planting native plants in your gardens to attract butterflies, and I know that some flowers produce seeds that are attractive to certain birds but I had not given much thought as to the type of tree growing in my yard making a difference to what birds might visit. To me trees were a source of perches, a safe place to build a nest, a roost away from predators, but it turns out trees provide much more for the birds. Since specific trees are hosts to certain butterflies, those trees could be full of their larvae for birds to dine on. Other trees might host a variety of different avian snacking choices other than the fruits or berries they might produce.

I do have a picture I took of a tree sparrow in a cedar elm as it was budding out one year in which I captured the bird while it was eating. Since it had something the same color as the budding leaves in its beak, I thought it was feasting on the buds. However, after enlarging the photo, it is definitely a caterpillar or worm of the same color as the leaves that the sparrow is chowing down on. I have seen

woodpeckers searching for their food in trees and I know that cedar waxwings, robins and mockingbirds adore yaupon holly berries when they are ripe. But until I read this article promoted by Audubon, I did not think about specific trees providing migrating flocks of songbirds much other than shelter and a place to rest. The article focuses on areas of the country outside of Texas but some of those same trees and species of birds can be found in our great state too. The article does also include a great resource to help someone find, by zip code, native plants from flowers to trees that will attract specific species of birds. While it is easier to update the flowers and possibly the shrubs in your garden, if you happen to be thinking about planting a tree, you now have another criteria to add to your tree selection process.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's 2014 Photo Contest

This year the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Photo Contest changed up its entry categories a bit and added a rule that you could enter a maximum of eight photos per person across whatever categories you entered. There was a new category, Birds and Butterflies with Native Wildflowers and Plants, that really appealed to me because of the nature shots that I tend to take as a starting point for my photographic art images. I found three images with birds and five images containing butterflies that I decided to enter this year. (You can click on the photos below to see larger images or go directly to my images on the photo contest page for voting by clicking here or to each individual photo's voting pages by clicking the title under each photo. When you are on those pages, if you click the photo to the left of the title, a much larger image eventually comes up.)

Female Cardinal on Bald Cypress------Western Kingbird on Pecan-------------Field Sparrow on Elm-----

---------------------Skipper on Pickerel Rush-----Gray Hairstreak on Late-Flowering Boneset---------------

---Fiery Skipper on Frog Fruit---Variegated Fritillary on Butterflyweed----Question Mark on Lantana---

Unless something manages to go viral, I don't expect to top the charts on the public voting, however it would still be very useful to me for developing future photographic art images to know which of these photos people like the best, so if you have the time please vote for your favorite(s). You may vote once per day (24 hour period) for whatever photo you like through May 9, 2014 (even if it isn't mine). If you really like an image but would prefer not to vote, please leave me a comment about the one(s) you like. The categories are judged privately, independent of the public voting.

What’s in Bloom – July 2012

As the weather dries out and the heat kicks in for summer, it can be a challenge to find plants that are willing to bloom in these conditions. Two perennials native to some of the U.S. that take the heat and keep on blooming are blackfoot daisy and butterflyweed.

Blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum, makes rounded mounds full of white flowers with yellow centers. These plants are very drought tolerant. In fact, you can kill them by overwatering them or planting them in soil that does not drain well. They really don’t like “wet feet”.

Butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosa, is also a waterwise plant. I find that it can tolerate a bit more water than blackfoot daisy. It produces clusters of small orange flowers sporadically throughout the summer. This is also an important butterfly caterpillar host plant. It can take being chewed on, so if you spot some caterpillars on your plants, leave them be.

You can find other native and adapted waterwise plants in my Texas Stars photo album.

Waterwise Gardening

Recently many areas of the US have experienced more severe than normal droughts. Last year’s drought in Texas even damaged some locally native plants. What can a gardener do to have a chance at pulling through their garden in a hot, dry year?

There are many resources available for tips on this subject. One of these is my article “Summertime Gardening” on pages 18-19 of last summer’s online De-Stress 4 Life magazine.

For those of you that are local to Arlington, TX a free “smart yard” symposium with some speakers addressing this issue will be held at Arlington City Hall and the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market this Saturday, March 31, 2012. Information about speakers, times, etc. for the symposium is found on the Green Source DFW website.

I will be a vendor this Saturday from 8 am - 1 pm at the Downtown Arlington Farmers Market with some of the native and adapted plants that do well in my north Texas garden. If after listening to the speakers and visiting my booth, you still need some direction to help you implement a water saving garden plan in your yard, I’d be happy to discuss my garden coaching services with you.