Go Wild
Want a glorious meadow in your own back yard? Here are some seeds of wisdom about growing Texas’ native flowers.
CAN’T DECIDE WHETHER to save the world or decorate it? Plant native wildflowers and you’ll do both. More and more Texas gardeners are embracing native plants, motivated by our eye-opening droughts and disenchantment with chemically maintained landscapes. But be forewarned: What begins as an innocent desire to grow a few blooming annuals—plants that complete their life cycles in one year and then reseed, like Drummond’s phlox—often escalates into a passion for native perennials, which take at least two years to complete their cycles, and then, before you know it, you’ll want native shrubs and trees. You can choose from more than five thousand flowering species of natives, and they are at home in beds, borders, and window boxes. But if you want to mirror nature, why not plant a meadow? It can be as big as your ranch or as small as a patch between sidewalk and street.
The profusion of wildflowers in nature can lead you to believe that a picture-book landscape can be yours simply by tossing out a few handfuls of seed. This illusion was created by that prankster Mother Nature, who has secretly been dispersing zillions of seeds for thousands and thousands of years to achieve her glorious effects. But don’t despair. Although your wildflower meadow is going to take considerable patience and some trial and error, there’s a lot of information out there to help you along. Unfortunately, few experts agree on the fine points of growing wildflowers. Do you gather seed close to home or is it okay to sow seed from plants grown in a different region of Texas? To scarify—scratch the hard seed coat, like the bluebonnet’s, to mimic the natural weathering process—or not to scarify? There’s not even a consensus on whether you should water your meadow or depend solely on rainfall. But the basic instructions are universal. If you follow them closely, in just a couple of years you’ll have a garden that is stunning and self-sustaining—one that will allow you the time to stop and smell the wildflowers.
Plan Your Meadow
IMPORT A PLANT FROM ONE REGION TO ANY OTHER and it’s no different than a nursery exotic. “It may die,” says Geyata Ajilvsgi, the author of Wildflowers of Texas. “It may struggle to survive. It may take off and become a weed. But wherever you are in the state, you’ve got beautiful wildflowers growing.” In far west Texas blackfoot daisy and evening primrose flourish in the sandy desert. Annual aster and turk’s cap flower among the pines and post oaks near Tyler. The heavy clays of the coastal prairies of Houston can be a challenge for wildflower gardeners, but instead of fighting the rains and poor drainage, plant black-eyed Susans or false dragonheads. Austin’s Hill Country, despite its thin soil, is home to some of the most popular wildflowers, including bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush. Around Dallas, where blackland prairies and woodlands converge, winecups and purple coneflowers abound. South of San Antonio, Indian blanket and coreopsis provide spring-to-frost color.
In a state that spans four hardiness zones, where annual rainfall ranges from 56 inches along the Louisiana border to 8 inches in El Paso and soil types vary from acid clay to alkaline caliche, it’s necessary to determine where you are, botanically speaking. For help, take a look at Sally and Andy Wasowski’s book Native Texas Plants, Landscaping Region by Region and its list of city-by-city vegetative possibilities. Study natural (as in “unimproved”) areas nearby and note plants that thrive. Dig a toe in the dirt and make your best guess. Choose a well-drained, sunny site for your wildflower meadow (unless you plan to concentrate on swamp sunflower or shade-tolerant species such as columbine). Then settle down with the Wasowskis’ book or one of the excellent field guides, like the aforementioned Wildflowers of Texas, color-coded and packed with information, or Campbell and Lynn Loughmiller’s comprehensive Texas Wildflowers, to determine the appropriate plants for your region and your site. You should also consider “flower architecture”—size, color, and height—in your meadow. Take your cues from nature. Remember how stunning that lavender gay feather was when paired with the yellow of goldenrod or the way a field of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush jump-started your eyeballs? “Think in terms of a prairie situation with native grasses and perennial flowers,” advises Marcia Herman, the natural areas manager at Austin’s respected National Wildflower Research Center, “and be willing to see things change.” In fact, native grasses should make up 50 to 80 percent of your meadow. Though beautiful in their own right, little bluestem, sideoats grama, buffalo, and others support and protect wildflower seedlings, act as noxious-weed inhibitors, prevent soil erosion, and provide color and texture when the wildflowers go to seed.
Think too about germination and bloom times. It’s possible to have blooms nearly year-round in the southern half of Texas, beginning with windflower anemones in January, moving to bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush in the spring, Mexican hat through the summer, and wrapping up with Indian blanket as late as December.
If you decide to use wildflowers in a more-traditional garden setting, where heights and colors are more critical than in a meadow, you can sow the seeds in flats indoors and transplant the seedlings at the appropriate time (bluebonnet seedlings, for instance, like bluebonnet seeds, should be planted in the fall). In this controlled situation, treat your wildflowers as you would any exotic annual, such as pansies or petunias; pull them from the flower bed as soon as their blooms have faded or they begin to look ragged. If you would like to purchase container-grown natives, the National Wildflower Research Center (512-292-4200) sells lists of native-plant nurseries across the state ($3).
All About Seeds
NOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT SEEDS YOU WANT, where do you get them? A mere fifteen years ago, your choices would have been limited to bluebonnets or California imports. You could have collected seeds yourself, but they would have come without instructions. Today, however, a head-spinning selection of wildflower seed is available, along with the guidance you’ll need if you collect your own.
During the building boom of the eighties, a Gulf Coast farmer named John Thomas was hired to seed the greenbelts and parks of Houston’s new residential areas with turf grasses. When landscape architects suggested that he try seeding wildflowers as well, Thomas couldn’t find the seed he needed. “The average world crop of bluebonnet seeds was around five thousand to ten thousand pounds,” he says. Finally, he unearthed a few “large-scale” wildflower growers in California. “One particular grower said he was the largest Indian blanket producer in the world,” Thomas says. “I said, ‘Great. I need a thousand pounds now and another fifteen hundred in six weeks.’ After a long pause, he said, ‘My whole inventory is five hundred pounds.’”
The entrepreneur in Thomas saw a need to be filled; the farmer in him saw how to fill it. And so Wildseed Farms, where vast fields of single flower species are grown in rows and mechanically harvested like food crops, was born in 1983. By 1996 the company had 1,600 acres in production in Gillespie and Colorado counties, growing two dozen native species as well as plants from other regions whose seeds are available at native-plant nurseries and through its catalog (800-848-0078).
Meanwhile, in North Texas, nurseryman Bill Neiman had watched manicured landscapes, some of which he had planned and planted, wither and die during the 1980 drought. “But driving around in what was left of the countryside,” says Neiman, “I saw native plants out there thriving, even blooming.” He and his wife, Jan, started experimenting with buffalo grass and wildflowers as alternatives to Bermuda grass lawns and collecting native seed to propagate and sell as container plants at their nursery in Flower Mound. By 1995 the Neimans had moved their operation to Junction and begun to focus on the production of seed. Native American Seed now showcases nearly one hundred native Texas species, including native grasses, in its catalog (800-728-4043) and at a few native-plant nurseries.
Both Wildseed and Native American Seed sell wildflower mixes; available by mail order or at some nurseries that specialize in native plants, they can help a novice gardener bloom. While Wildseed’s Texas-Oklahoma mix features mostly natives (bulletproof species like Indian blanket and Mexican hat), consumer demand for color resulted in the inclusion of such non-natives as rocket larkspur and corn flower (the mix sells for $27.50 a pound, which will cover 2,500 square feet, or $9.95 for a quarter pound). Purists who want only natives can buy seeds of individual species and make their own mix, or they can sow Neiman’s mix, a blend of eight native Texas species ($27.50 a pound or $2.50 for a packet that will cover twenty square feet). “These have the genetic information to survive the worst drought, the worst flood, the worst freeze,” Neiman says. Non-regional mixes, which can contain everything from Iceland poppies and chicory to vermiculite filler, should be avoided. “The Meadow-in-a-Can is a gift item, not a garden item,” cautions John Dromgoole, the owner of Austin’s Garden-Ville Nursery.
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