Winter Rain = Wildflowers

 

Our drought is not over we’re told.  However, the wonderful winter rains have helped germinate a couple years worth of wildflower seeds that have been just waiting for this weather.  Let’s identify a few of the bountiful blooms that you are surely seeing in your yards here in Mystic Shores

Hill Country will be shimmering blue with a flush of blue bonnets this spring.  If you don’t have them in your yard, you can buy plants in the spring and establish a small bed of them.  The deer seem to eat them in my front yard unless I protect them with a wire fence.  In the back yard where it is fenced, I started 6 plants 5 years ago and now have hundreds.  I don’t water or fertilize them at all.  I pull the plants when the seed pods are brown (they are annuals and won’t come back).  By that time they will have thrown their seeds all over.  Late summer I will start to see the little plants starting up.  This has worked so much better than scattering seed in the fall.  If I want plants in new places, I just throw some of the seeds around as I am pulling up the spent plants.

Another early spring wildflower that you will surely see is the prairie coneflower.  It is a perennial, so it will continue to come up wherever you see it this spring.  It will also continue to multiply by seeds that germinate in the fall.  It is lovely mixed with our wild grasses or massed in a wildflower garden.  The deer don’t bother this hardy fellow, and they are extremely drought tolerant, so you can grow them anywhere in your yard that you want.  Your problem will be that they will spread and multiply rapidly.  They have a deep taproot, so they are hard to pull by hand.  This plant supplies not only nectar but small seeds that our small finches enjoy. 

If you are very lucky, you may have some Texas Paintbrush on your property.  I have only found one plant in my yard and it only blooms in years that we have rain.  This plant is semi parasitic.  Its roots will invade the roots of nearby native grasses and take nutrition from them.  If you want to introduce these lovely natives, you can buy seed or it is possible to buy plants that are already attached to a grass.  If you find some, be sure to let the seed pods form and dry before mowing since these are annuals and won’t come back from the roots. 

We have a couple of kinds of wild Verbena that will be blooming.  One form has ferny, prostrate growth and forms dense mats if it gets any water.  It will bloom for months if the rains continue.  Its sister tends to send its clusters up away from the mat of green leaves.  The Verbenas are full of nectar for the early butterflies.   You will find that the deer don’t much bother the native verbenas but will lunch on the cultivars that you buy at the nursery.   

After these natives have finished their show, look for the odd looking Antelope Horn plants.  The first time I saw the bloom of this plant, I was blown away.  It looked like a green – white wax globe with multiple little parts.  The plant grows prostrate and has long thin leaves on the trailing stems.  It is a milkweed and has a white, sticky sap if you break the plant.  After blooming it sets long brown pods that are filled with thousands of seeds on feathery little parachutes.   This plant is a great plant for caterpillars.  So, if you love the Monarchs and Queen Butterflies, leave these strange plants in place when you find them.   The flowers’ nectar is popular with our native bees and many butterflies.

 

Sources:  Wildflowers of Texas by Geyata Ajilvsgi (a Hill Country resident), and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website ( http://www.wildflower.org )