Wildflowers in a Texas Landscape

Native Flowers Offer Easy Care, Bright Colors, Completely Adapted

Aug 31, 2009

A gardener is doing a favor to the environment when he grows wildflowers in the Texas landscape. Wildflowers require little care and bloom in the spring.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in conjunction with the University of Texas at Austin maintains a list of Texas wildflowers. These organizations divide Texas into six regions for growing wildflowers to accommodate the variety of temperatures and soil conditions in a state as large as Texas. Selecting wildflower varieties that are approved for a gardener’s growing region increases the chance of successful growing. Texas wildflower growing regions are:

How to Grow Wildflowers in Texas

Wildflowers require full sun. They are usually planted in the fall for blooming the following spring. Wildflowers especially well suited to the different growing regions on Texas can be purchased as seed packets from specialty wholesalers such as Wildseed Farms in Fredericksburg, Texas. Seed packets like these contain several varieties of wildflower.

Select a location with well-drained soil. Prepare the seed bed by raking or gently tilling the soil. Do not disturb the soil more than about one inch deep. Mix the seeds with potting soil or inorganic materials such as perlite. Sow the seeds by broadcasting as uniformly as possible over the prepared area.

Press the seeds into the soil and water the area. An application of fertilizer is acceptable, but not really necessary unless the area has been sorely depleted of nutrients. If fertilizing, use a low-nitrogen, balanced fertilizer. That’s it. Now wait for spring.

Popular wildflowers over much as Texas include the State Flower—the bluebonnet—as well as poppies, Black-eyed Susans, Indian Paint Brush, Wild Petunias, Butterfly Weed, Fleabane Daisy, and Bitterweed. These wildflowers provide the Texas landscape with blue, white, yellow, orange and red profusion of color.

After blooming, the plants will die back and can be cut at the base removing the dead materials. The plants are perennials and will re-bloom the following spring. The wildflowers are disease resistant and require little care beyond normal rainfall after blooming.

Preserving Texas Wildflowers – The Work of Ladybird Johnson

While Ms. Johnson was First Lady of the United States, she worked tirelessly for highway beautification. President Johnson created the wildflower program administered by the Department of Transportation in 1967. In 1982, Lady Bird founded the National Wildflower Research Center located in Austin, Texas.

The wildflower research center was renamed The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in recognition of her efforts and continued support. In 1987, Ms. Johnson lobbied to add native wildflower planting requirements to the Surface Transportation Urban Relocation Authorization Act ensuring that native wildflower seeds or seedlings were planted on federal highways projects.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has 16 gardens with native Texas plants including the South Meadow which is sown with a variety of wildflowers native to the central Texas region. The Center hopes to inspire Texas landscape gardens to use native wildflowers by showing and educating them on the ease of care and natural beauty provided by these colorful plants.

Texas landscape gardeners will find that seeding wildflowers in with their other plants provides a colorful, highly-adapted, and easy to care for addition. State transportation authorities have also found that planting wildflowers along roadsides reduces erosion and maintenance costs.

The copyright of the article Wildflowers in a Texas Landscape in Landscaping is owned by Barbara Brown. Permission to republish Wildflowers in a Texas Landscape in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.