Under a pavilion on the plains of the San Antonio Botanical Garden in South Texas, Michael Eason, who collects and preserves many of the garden's native plants, talks to members of the Williamson County chapter of the Texas Native Plant Society. Eason highlights some unusual specimens and how he traveled 300 miles to collect them in far West Texas. "I don't know exactly how many rare trees we planted," he said. "But we're just waiting for cooler weather to bring us here to the garden."
It has been a particularly tough year for plants and pollinators. Record droughts, heat and hail, increased climate change, and late winter snowstorms are wreaking havoc on Texas parks for young and old alike. And water shortages caused by the summer drought are making the situation worse.
But that means more and more gardeners are choosing native plants that can survive extremes because they've adapted to the Texas climate over millennia. Fortunately, most people don't need to go to Eason to find them.
More retailers are now selling Texas native plants that, according to Meg Inglis, executive director of the Texas Native Plant Society, "develop and occur naturally, without human intervention, in a specific ecoregion or environment." And this is peak planting season. In celebration of Native Plant Week, October 15-21, the Texas Native Plant Society recently announced a partnership with HEB that carries four varieties (Greg's Mist Flower, Turk's Cap, Cistas and Flowery) in 79 grocery stores. Blue sage). These plants need little water, bloom profusely and are pollinator magnets.
James Plyer said severe weather will boost local plant sales this year, as it did after the 2011 drought, 2017 Hurricane Harvey and 2021 winter storms. The plant grower produced and sold 1.8 million plants to retail nurseries and horticulture companies across the state last year.
But scientists like Eason would like to see a greater variety of native plants available for purchase. "It's great that you can find native plants in all these stores," Eason said. "But usually about 20 of the same species are used over and over again in the local landscape."
It is estimated that a home gardener has access to 150 to 200 different species native to all of Texas. That's just 4 percent of Texas' native flora. In a healthy ecosystem, Texas is home to hundreds of different plant species.
In Texas, the movement to plant native plants in residential and commercial landscapes gained momentum in the 1980s with the formation of the Texas Native Plant Society and the growing of native plants in Texas and the Southwest. This book by Jill Knox provides gardeners and gardeners with the knowledge to propagate native plants.
As water scarcity worsens, more and more Texans have changed jobs in recent decades. Unlike tropical flowers or lawns, native plants do not require watering or mowing and create an environment that can attract birds, bees and butterflies like the iconic monarch. With their deep root systems, native plants can also increase flooding due to climate change. Having developed a symbiosis with native insects over thousands of years, they are resistant to many pests, reducing the need for expensive and often harmful pesticides.
But natives grow where they evolved. For example, if you plant a plant native to North Texas, its chances of survival are less than if you collect seeds or cuttings of the same species from your area. And I planted them.
Ultimately, Eason wants home gardeners to be able to plant "a representation of their native flora" in their landscape. To achieve this, nurseries must offer more varieties that are native to different regions of Texas and have different "regional genetics." This calls for establishing more small nurseries across the state, collecting cuttings and seeds, and promoting and selling these native plants. Genetic diversity improves a species' chances of survival in the increasingly harsh conditions caused by climate change.
Eason is an expert, but many Texans are learning more about wildflowers and other native species using plant discovery apps like iNaturalist's Seek. They are asked to bring larger plant species to the gardens and supply them to the nurseries.
Much of that push in Texas came from members of statewide organizations such as the 4,500-member Native Plant Society and the 13,000-member Master Naturalists of Texas. These organizations provide a cadre of educators who provide information on the benefits and diversity of native plants.
Two new nurseries dedicated to selling native plants opened this fall in San Antonio: Nectar Bar and Pollinatives. Donald Gerber, owner of Pollinative, is a naturalist and member of the Native Plant Society. In addition to purchasing plants from wholesale suppliers, these nurseries grow new plant species that they have collected themselves, or that were not previously commercially available, using plant material from the San Antonio Botanical Garden.
More and more tree nurseries like this form the series of large nurseries and offer more options to people who want to make a difference in their garden.
"Each person can create a 10-by-4-foot space and put it in a pollination garden, a bird garden, whatever, with native plants, whatever comes to mind. We're doing our part to diversify. We're doomed as a human species to take away [native] landscapes," said Drake White, owner of Native Bar.
Native plant lovers like Gerber and White have special memories of the beauty and resilience of native plants.
Plyer, a Texas-based gardener, recently recalled a 2012 seed-gathering trip to west Texas. . It was the most wonderful thing. To see what these plants are capable of, what they have endured and what they can endure. »
List of native plant resources.
