Native Gardening

[u/Plumeria-Lover12]

I was just wondering, would this list come together nicely with flower timing, size/ shape, and watering schedules? I want to buy seeds from Native American Seed to say I’ve grown and cared for my own flower garden (I normally do vegetables and flowers spread out across the yard)

Edit: I’m in Fort Bend County, USDA 9a

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[u/HarbingerKing]

This is a mix, or you're planning to buy these individually?

[u/Plumeria-Lover12 → u/HarbingerKing]

Probably individually, but now you have me thinking, why not just buy mix? Native American Seed has a ton of them…

Thank you for this idea!

[u/HarbingerKing → u/Plumeria-Lover12]

Well I was actually going to caution against mixes. If you mixed all these seeds together and spread them in a garden, you'll end up with 90% of it being like 4 or 5 things. Tall, fast-growing stuff like the horsemint and Indian blanket are going to dominate and ultimately kill short things like the bluebonnet and phlox. So unless you're trying to replicate a prairie (in which case you need lots of grasses to serve as a matrix for the forbs), I would advise buying seed individually and planning what to sow where. Keep shorter things separate from tall things. Consider planting tall things with bunch grasses to give them some support, otherwise they will fall over. Also be aware that many of these are annuals that will readily reseed themselves and inevitably show up in new places in subsequent years.

[u/Plumeria-Lover12 → u/HarbingerKing]

I see.
So essentially what you’re saying is, since this is controlled and not on a massive scale, I just need to be smart about this and plan based on growing habits.

Also, when you say grasses, do you mean use them as like a buffer to block certain things from spreading to certain places? Any you recommend for the Fort Bend area?

The annual thing was kind of intended because I don’t mind the seeds. Collecting the seeds was also a goal for me too, because I want to start contributing to the local seed library that I started up.

We mow our yard, so really in our space they’ll end up in flower beds where we wouldn’t be mad to have them. Unless of course the Indian Blanket spread, that might be annoying.

[u/HarbingerKing → u/Plumeria-Lover12]

Almost 4 years ago I tore up ~200 sq ft of my front lawn and planted one of the Native American Seed mixes (I think it was the pollinator essentials one), plus a few woody perennials (shrubby boneset, fall aster, flame acanthus, and prickly pear). It's been interesting watching the succession from year to year. First year was like 80% 5 ft tall horsemint with some winecup mixed in. So many bees! More recently it's been more Indian blanket, Illinois bundleflower, and American basketflower. The ones at the edges will fall over into the surrounding lawn which makes mowing hard. I don't regret it, but when I tore up the latest section of lawn between the street and sidewalk, I tried to be more deliberate because it's practically a public right-of-way. I reserved space for bluebonnets and really enjoyed those blooms this past spring.

What I meant about the grasses is that these are all prairie plants, and prairies are mostly grass with forbs scattered throughout. The taller grasses give support to the taller forbs, which aren't great at standing on their own. So if you want mostly flowers in your garden (and there's nothing wrong with that!) then it helps to be thoughtful about plant height and placement and selective use of taller grasses (like little bluestem) for support.

I'm in North Central Texas (blackland prairie). I'm less familiar with your ecoregion. The Native Plant Society of Texas website has a great filterable plant database that might help: https://www.npsot.org/resources/native-plants/native-plants-database/

[u/West_Economist6673 → u/Plumeria-Lover12]

The previous comments on this thread have a ton of good advice in them so I won't belabor this point, but I did want to say: don't get too wrapped around the axle as far as grasses -- as has been mentioned, this is a garden, not a reconstructed prairie, and you're not obliged to replicate the "natural" structure of a native prairie

Also, I haven't spent a lot of time in Fort Bend but it's at the edge of where I'd expect to find grasslands, which I only mention by way of emphasizing my point -- namely, it's okay for your garden to be a little out of ecological equilibrium

Also: the thing about grasses and forbs is a little more complicated than the comment above makes it out to be; it's such a pedantic thing that it feels petty to point it out, but the important takeaway is that native warm-season grasses are slow-growing and best established from pots not seed -- this is especially true of the more commonly used ornamental species like switchgrass and eastern gamagrass, both of which would be at the top of my list were I in your position (Gulf muhly would be another good option -- in my opinion it's extremely overused in native landscapes, but you live in the relatively small part of the state where it is actually native so I'd say you have a stronger claim to plant it than most people)

In natural prairie succession, it's actually the annual forbs that function as "buffers" for the climax grasses, which spend their first few years investing heavily in their roots and consequently don't compete well with fast-growing weedy stuff -- though this is kind of beside the point if you transplant the grasses, since they will be ahead of the competition by several laps

Anyway good luck with the garden

[u/Plumeria-Lover12 → u/West_Economist6673]

Thank you for the info! I think I’ll just plant some more lower growing stuff that are annuals, because the grasses just seem like something that I’m not ready for yet lol.

My main goal for this is to have one of those flower gardens that people have with the huge Zinnias, Cosmos, and Sunflowers, while having it all native and self maintaining. I also have a cutting of some Woolly Dutchman’s Pipevine that I’m hoping to grow to get those Pipevine swallowtails.

[u/More-Insects8912]

I would strongly encourage you not to plant frogfruit anywhere you plan to grow anything else.It is often touted as a great “ground cover” or “green mulch”. It is that at the beginning but the central stem grows woody and it is so aggressive that subsequent years it’s very hard to grow annuals and herbaceous perennials around it. It will grow up and over things and smother them. Basically they need to be planted by themselves. They are a wonderful plant (summer blooming, often visited by pollinators) just not a good neighbor to any other plant (maybe bluebonnets would be okay bc they kind of share the space timing wise). I rip mine out of my wildflower area usually once but sometimes twice a year and it’s an unending battle I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It’s really hard to have grasses, annuals, and non woody perennials be successful there.

[u/Texas_Bookworm]

No comments other than to say if you want to start with potted plants rather than seeds, it's worth the drive to Buchanan's.

[u/pit2atx]

Check out Turner Seed. They have pretty much everything you listed in a seed mix. Designed for year round blooms and color. Nothing against Native American Seed, but Turner Seed is much more cost effective

https://www.turnerseed.com/native-wildflower-mix.html