Wildflower Wednesday September 2019: Leucophyllum frutescens blooms just in time

When we had a good one-inch plus rainfall about 12 days ago, I started the countdown to blooms on our row of Texas Sage (Leucophyllum frutescens) along the driveway.  It usually takes about 10 days for the first blooms to emerge after a rain.  Blooms can appear in spring or summer but they are seen most reliably in the fall.

From the first tinge of lavender-pink it takes another couple of days for full bloom which arrived today -- just in time for Wildflower Wednesday.

The best garage door disguise

Native to South Texas and down into Mexico, these are 'Silverado' variety.  The true natives are a bit scrawny and sporadic for a neighborhood landscape.  While there were a few of those in our original landscape, they were removed over time and replaced by this fuller commercially grown version with intense flower color contrasted with gray-green foliage.  Despite common names which include Texas Sage, it's not a true sage which means it is not in genus Salvia.



Still close enough to the original to be a Wildflower Wednesday pick.  Shrubs can be wildflowers too.

Yesterday evening just beginning to reach peak bloom

  

Morning sun brings out more vibrant color

As soon as the blooms are out the bees get busy since the blooms only last a few days.  



Even with its rare bloom, this reminds me why I chose to plant Leucophyllum frutescens along the driveway.

Wildflower Wednesday is hosted by Gail at Clay and Limestone on the fourth Wednesday of each month.

Wildflower Wednesday August 2019: Passiflora vines

Sometimes the simplest ideas turn out to be the biggest challenge.  I'm all set to highlight Passiflora in my garden as a great butterfly host plant for the August edition of Wildflower Wednesday.  I can't get much closer to home when it comes to native plants than this Passiflora foetida grown from seed collected along the utility easement behind our back fence.  Or is it Passiflora foetida?  I checked the NPIN database at The Wildflower Center and noted their photo, especially the leaves, showed significant differences from mine.  Clearly this was more complicated than I thought.  After much searching I found no other Passiflora photos that looked any closer to the one in my garden so I'm going with Passiflora foetida and noting some plant characteristics may vary.

Common names include Corona de cristo and Fetid (stinky!) Passionflower.  Since these grow nearby without any supplemental water and care I follow nature's lead and let them scramble with just an occasional dose of water from the hose when nearby drought-tolerant plants need water.

Passiflora flowers open early and close just as soon as the sun hits.

Caged bloom buds and seeds add interest along the vine and you can see (above and below) where the cage-like sepals fold out and back in as the flower opens and closes with light.

Available information is all over the place on the native/invasive status of Passiflora foetida.  Combining information from several sources I find Passiflora foetida is native to deep South Texas and has spread northward to San Antonio.  It's not even close to being invasive in our climate but introduced to tropical climates like Hawaii it can form a dense mat and smother native plants.  I would love to have it spread a bit more as it is the exclusive larval host for Gulf Frittilary butterflies we have in abundance.  In fact we've had a dry summer and the vines in the wild are parched so it's a good thing to give a few of these at home in my garden.  It is also a host for the stunning Zebra Longwing butterfly which aren't seen often enough in my garden.

Another Zebra Longwing host, Passiflora lutea or Yellow passionflower, turned up by surprise in my garden a few years ago.  Since it looks similar to Snailseed vine I almost pulled it but caught myself just in time and decided to research first.  At first I was stumped because I compared it to P. affinis which didn't look exactly right.  A post to the Facebook group Texas Flora quickly pointed me to P. Lutea with a caveat to wait for blooms to be sure.

Happily Passiflora lutea has returned each year and grown from a small sprout to present tiny yellow blooms for the first time this summer.  Passiflora lutea prefers part shade and moist soil so it planted itself in the right spot near a barrel planter I water frequently.

Host to several butterflies including the same Gulf Fritillary and Zebra Longwing which are attracted to Passiflora foetida featured above.

Given the success of these two Passiflora vines I'll try to add Passiflora incarnata which is one native Passionvine currently missing from my blooming collection.

Bring on the butterflies!  

Wildflower Wednesday is hosted on the fourth Wednesday of each month by Gail at Clay and Limestone.  She always has informative posts on wonderful native plants so be sure to check out her blog for links to participating blogs as well.

Wildflower Wednesday July 2019: Texas Greeneyes!

Oh those green eyes!

I first spotted Texas Greeneyes while browsing the impressive native plant display gardens at Medina Garden Nursery and knew instantly Berlandiera betonicifolia or texana was a plant I had to have in my own garden.  I'm joining Gail at Clay and Limestone for Wildflower Wednesday on the fourth Wednesday of each month to highlight one of my favorite native summer blooming plants.

According to Sally Wasowski's book Native Texas Plants it's easy to grow in just about any soil and doesn't need much water.  The Wildflower database tells me Greeneyes are native to my Central Texas area.  Sounded like a sure thing for my garden, and they were just that.  They are perennials so plant them once and they'll be back in future years.

Unless you have armadillos.

My first attempt at growing these ended when an armadillo dug my one single plant up by the roots just before it set seeds.  Medina is over an hour and a half drive by back roads.  It's a beautiful drive in the country so I managed to get out there again the following spring and brought home several to plant in different conditions just to make sure.  This time I added cages and rocks to discourage animal digging.

And it worked.  They have now returned two years in a row.  And I still love having them bloom in my garden from Spring to Fall.

Blooms in May with more upright growth

Reading about the care of a plant and growing it yourself are often two different experiences.  No less the case with Greeneyes.  With several plants from my second trip to Medina I could experiment with a variety of planting locations.  Available information states they grow best in part shade which I have found to be true.  The same sites also state that they flop over in shade which they do.  So I planted some in full sun.  And they flop over in sun too!  Conclusion, it's a floppy plant.  Most of the photos in this post show them leaning sideways.  I still don't care because those green eyes surrounded by bright yellow petals are just so fun to see in the summer garden.  Every flowering stage from bright green eyes to petaled flower adds interest to the plant.

New flower eyes are green.  Stems are fuzzy and sticky like sunflowers.



Varying burgundy rings emerge in the eyes as flowers age.  I'm saving those seeds to continue lining the fence with them.

It's related to Chocolate Daisy and is said to have a similar chocolate fragrance though it's not as distinctly chocolate scented.



The Wildflower Center info recommends planting with native grasses.  I might try that to give them something to lean on.  Fading Beebalm works pretty well too.  I haven't seen many pollinators on these but I do have plenty of other nectar options nearby.

Sally Wasowski writes that she waters hers about once a month in the hot Texas summer.  These went about ten days without supplemental water before they looked in need of a drink so I'd say 2-3 times in the summer months.

Height 18" to 24", spring to fall blooming, grows in most soil types with dry to average moisture, sun to shade.  Native to the Central U.S. states and down to Mexico.  Perennial in my zone 8b garden.

This is a keeper.

Join Gail to learn more about growing native plants in the garden.

Wildflower Wednesday March 2018: Damianita

Damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana) has been blooming in the front garden this week and I've been going out there almost every day just to enjoy their golden beauty.  I'm joining Gail at Clay and Limestone for Wildflower Wednesday to take a closer look at a great native landscape plant for Central Texas.

Soft, daisy-like flowers on bright green foliage make it so attractive in the landscape.  Highly aromatic woody stems with the scent of camphor makes it icky to deer.  Not so much as a tiny nibble.

Great view from the street side.



A nice walk especially on a cloudy day.



This October 2017 photo shows Damianita remains evergreen when not in bloom which is why I chose it to replace the under-performing Lantana originally planted here.

Still back in October showing off a good landscape plant year round.  The green mound in the island bed is also Damianita.



Green even in the snow!

Damianita is a local native which survives on rocky outcroppings in the Texas Hill Country with no supplemental water so it stays happy with just an occasional deep drink during hot summer months.  The Lantana it replaced required a lot more water to look good in this hot spot.  Damianita thrives in the reflected heat from gravel mulch, the driveway and a full southern exposure with 10+ hours of direct sun in the summer.

They are picky about pruning.  When the blooms are done I will lightly shear the tops to encourage another round of blooms which will continue until fall.  Shearing keeps them from getting leggy and topping out around 12" high though I have seen them get closer to 3' in the wild.  Sometimes a few brown stems will show and I just use clippers to cut the stems back about halfway to green them up again.  Making sure not to cut the woody stems too far back is about the only concern with Damianita.

Damianita is polite enough to set out a seedling (left) exactly where I would have added one anyway.  I'd like more seedlings because I have a lot more places to add these little wonders.

Damianita is a great choice for the streetside bed too so I added another one recently.

No wonder I'm adding Damianita wherever I can find a sunny spot in need of year-round green and bright yellow flowers!

Join Gail at Clay and Limestone on the fourth Wednesday of each month for more ideas on native wildflowers for your landscape.

Wildflower Wednesday April 2015: Wildflower Walk in the Park

It's Wildflower Wednesday when bloggers are invited by Gail at Clay and Limestone to post on wildflowers in our gardens.  I'm pushing the rules a bit this month with flowers from a local park.  On Monday I joined members of the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas for a wildflower walk in Phil Hardberger Park led by Wendy Leonard, park naturalist for the City of San Antonio.

While the masses of wildflowers lining Texas roadways in the spring are legendary, Wendy focused on the smaller flowers growing in restoration areas of the park.

One crowd favorite was the Pincushion Daisy (Gaillardia suavis).  It's a (mostly) petal-less flower with a wonderfully spicy fragrance that lends it another common name of Perfumeballs.

Wildflower Wednesday: Texas Native Plant Week

Wildflower Wednesday hosted by Gail at Clay and Limestone on the fourth Wednesday of each month also happens to fall in the middle of Texas Native Plant Week.  This makes it fun to post about both at the same time by taking a tour of the Texas native wildflowers in my garden.

We'll start with Clammy Weed (Polanisia dodecandra).  These native annuals provide a succession of blooms through our hot summers.  As one group fades and goes to seed another takes its place.  They are prolific reseeders and I look forward to having them in the garden for years to come.

Wildflower Wednesday: Senna lindheimeriana

It's Wildflower Wednesday and I'm joining Gail and Clay and Limestone for a closer look at Senna lindheimeriana.

The bright yellow blooms of Lindheimer Senna appear just as summer turns to fall.

Wildflower Wednesday: Clematis drummondii

When an unknown native plant shows up in my garden I'll usually leave it in place for a season to see if it blooms.  Sometimes it turns out to be a weed but occasionally the approach works out far better than I could have guessed.  I'm joining Gail at Clay and Limestone for Wildflower Wednesday to feature one of those potential weeds that turned out to be a very special native plant.  Clematis drummondii is commonly known as Old Man's Beard, Texas Virgin's Bower, or Goats Beard.  It's easy to see why "beard" is part of the common name.

Wildflower Wednesday July 2014: Matelea reticulata

So pretty and delicate it could be a lacy dress trim--if any of us still wear such things.

Matelea reticulata or Green Milkweed Vine is my choice for Wildflower Wednesday July 2014.  Wildflower Wednesday on the fourth Wednesday of each month is when Gail of Clay and Limestone invites garden bloggers to post about native flowering plants in their garden.

The delicate netted flowers with the iridescent pearl centers make it easy to see why Pearl Milkweed is also one of its common names.

Wildflower Wednesday June 2014: Teucrium canadense

A photo of Teucrium canadense in my Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post last week generated some comments about the plant so I'm featuring Canada or American Germander for Wildflower Wednesday.  The fourth Wednesday of each month Gail at Clay and Limestone invites garden bloggers to join her with a post on flowering native plants in our gardens.

Wildflower Wednesday May 2014: Stachys coccinea

It's Wildflower Wednesday and time to join Gail at Clay and Limestone for a look at flowering native plants in the garden.  May's wildflower pick is Stachys coccinea or Texas Betony.

Looking for a deer-resistant native evergreen plant which covers a lot of ground quickly and flowers in the shade?  Impossible?  Not quite, that plant does exist and it's Texas Betony also known as Scarlet Betony and Scarlet Hedgenettle.  It could easily rate the common name "Hummingbird Magnet" as many sites mention it attracts hummingbirds.  Besides being evergreen it's almost ever blooming with just a short break in the coldest months and it's one of the earliest bloomers in my garden.  There doesn't seem to be a mention of it attracting the Hummingbird Moth but the red flowers were a real standout in my early spring garden and the Hummingbird Moths made a beeline for those bright tubular flowers!

Wildflower Wednesday April 2014: Penstemon Cobaea

It's the fourth Wednesday of April and time for Wildflower Wednesday when bloggers join Gail at Clay and Limestone to highlight flowering native plants in our gardens.  For April I'm featuring Penstemon cobaea one of the newest native plants in my garden.

When Jenny at Rock Rose in Austin posted about spotting Penstemon cobaea in a patch of roadside wildflowers just over two years ago I made a note to try to find some for my garden.  It took a while, but I did find them at the Native Plant Society of Texas plant sale here in San Antonio a few weeks ago.

A plant with my name on it, sort of.  It's not actually a foxglove but Wild Foxglove is its common name and as close as we can get in our hot Texas climate unless we purchase Foxglove already in bloom as an annual.  So I'll take it.  Look at those bearded flowers!  Almost like a fox could wear them as gloves.

Wildflower Wednesday March 2014: More of these please!

It's the fourth week of March and time for Wildflower Wednesday when I join Gail at Clay and Limestone and other bloggers to highlight flowering native plants in our gardens.  For March I'm featuring plants growing naturally around my area and native to South Texas that I'd like to see become established in my garden.

Last spring I discovered a small stand of Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) along the creek behind the house.  Pretty and delicate with bright blue blooms in the spring, I was so pleased to find this native member of the iris family growing naturally just a foot or so over the property line.

Wildflower Wednesday February 2014: One daisy or two?

It's Wildflower Wednesday and time to join Gail at Clay and Limestone in sharing flowering natives from the garden.  Among the stand-out plants in the garden during our exceptionally cold winter have been two native perennial daisies which remained green and continued to bloom through it all.

Tetraneuris scaposa var. scaposa or Four-nerve Daisy in the front garden

Wildflower Wednesday January 2014: Apios americana

On the fourth Wednesday of each month I join Gail at Clay and Limestone and other bloggers for Wildflower Wednesday to celebrate flowering native plants in my garden.  January's choice is Apios americana.

When I first noticed this little plant flowering near my fence in the back yard I thought it was an especially pretty native plant so I identified it as Apios americana commonly known as Groundnut or Wild potato.  

Wildflower Wednesday November 2013: Will the real Boneset...

On the fourth Wednesday of each month I join Gail at Clay and Limestone for Wildflower Wednesday to celebrate flowering native plants in my garden.  November's choice is Boneset.

Researching plants is fun but when I find multiple common or botanical names for the same or similar plants it can be confusing.  Such is the case with Bonesets.  Boneset, Throughwort (Thoroughwort), Fragrant Mistflower, Havana Snakeroot, Agueweed, Crosswort, Indian Sage, are all names for Eupatorium havenense.   Very fragrant and highly attractive to bees, the white blossoms scent the air each fall.

The term Boneset derives from early medicinal uses when a tea made from the plant was used to treat Denque Fever which was also known as "breakbone fever" due to the pain it caused.

Throughwort or thoroughwort apparently refers to the way the stem appears to grow through the leaf although I couldn't quite see that in my garden.

Wildflower Wednesday October 2013: Texas Native Plant Week

Since last spring I've joined Gail of Clay and Limestone for Wildflower Wednesday to celebrate wildflowers in the garden on the fourth Wednesday of each month.  It's also Texas Native Plant Week so I'm celebrating both with a tour of native plants currently blooming in my garden.  Collecting and growing native plants in my garden has become a bit of a quest for me since they do best in our challenging climate.  October is when many plants look their best here after having recovered from the long hot summer and with several fall rains to help them along.

Helenium amarum reseeded in this location from last year and should continue to grow along the gravel path in the circle garden.

Wildflower Wednesday September 2013: Purple wildflowers and Rain Lilies

 It's Wildflower Wednesday sponsored by Gail at Clay and Limestone where she invites bloggers to share stories of wildflowers in our gardens the fourth Wednesday of each month.

For September 2013 I'm featuring purple performers and Rain Lilies in the fall garden.

The much-anticipated Liatris or Gayfeather is blooming this week.  Another plant generously shared by Michael at Plano Prairie Garden last year.  He's not sure exactly which variety this is so he's listed it as Liatris somethingorother in his plant list.  I do know for sure it is a striking color in the fall garden.  The plants have begun to spread out in their second year in my garden and look better this year compared to last year when they were newly planted.

Wildflower Wednesday August 2013: Xanthisma texanum

Meet Xanthisma texanum or Sleepy Daisy, a native Texas wildflower so pretty that it's considered a show stopper at Annie's Annuals all the way over in California.  If you are familiar with Annie's Annuals you'll know a plant has to be special to stand out in their beautiful displays.  It's Wildflower Wednesday and I'm joining Gail at Clay and Limestone where garden bloggers are invited to report on wildflowers in their gardens the fourth Wednesday of each month.

Wildflower Wednesday July 2013: Clammy Weed (Polanisia dodecandra)

Would you plant something named Clammy Weed in your garden?  I certainly did, especially since it was shared by Michael at Plano Prairie Garden when I visited his beautiful garden back in May.  I'm joining Gail at Clay and Limestone for Wildflower Wednesday where bloggers are invited to report on wildflowers in their gardens the fourth Wednesday of each month.