landscaping – Page 2 – NPSOT-Williamson County Chapter

January 8, 2023March 28, 2023

Xeriscaping with Texas Native Plants

— by Randy Pensabene

Xeriscaping with Texas Native Plants
by Randy K. Pensabene, NPSOT-Williamson County

“Xeriscaping” (pronounced zer-i-skaping, not “zero-skaping”) is a term coined in the 1980s. A fundamental principle of Xeriscaping, is that people living in dry climates should landscape using “appropriate plant selection,” meaning they should use plants suited to dry, arid landscapes rather than plants that need lots of water to survive.

Watering of today’s landscapes and lawns accounts for approximately 50-75% of residential water use. Instead of the typical water-guzzling landscape, you can elect to have a beautiful and functional low-water, drought-resistant landscape with native plants.

The native plants that evolved in this area survive and thrive in our soil, heat, droughts, flooding rains, and freezes. They also provide year-round nectar, seeds, fruit, nuts, and habitat necessary for our native wildlife to survive. Texas native plants provide the host plants our butterflies depend on and the food required to sustain our native bird populations and fuel our migrating birds.

Click on this link to learn more about the benefits of landscaping with native Texas plants and a list of low-water, drought-resistant landscape plants recommended for Williamson County and surrounding areas.

photo of non native lawn and plants — Typical Landscaping using high-water non-native lawn and plants

photo of drought tolerant TX native plants — Xeriscape using low-water, drought-tolerant native Texas plants

November 6, 2022April 14, 2023

For NPSOT members, Nov 17, preview “Native Plant Society of Texas Native Plant Database”

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From Meg Inglis, NPSOT Executive Director:

When: Thursday, November 17, 2022, 12 – 1 pm, via Zoom
What: NPSOT Native Plant Database demo

Claire Sorenson, Jon Lienhard and Stephanie Long saw a need and then took the initiative to create a Native Plant Society of Texas Native Plant Database. Their prototype uses Austin-area native plant information. Please join our demonstration of the database and give feedback. The session is free and open to all Society members!

Register at this link

You must log in to your Native Plant Society account to successfully register for the meeting. When you “Click to register online”, a “Log In” screen pops up. If you do not already have a login for the Native Plant Society – or if you have forgotten your login – fill in your email address and click “Recover Account.”

Immediately after registration watch for a registration confirmation email with Zoom meeting and Dropbox folder links. If you do not see the email, please check your junk mail.

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August 8, 2022April 14, 2023

What I Am Watering….

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— by Beth Erwin

I am being asked about watering native plants in the drought. After all, we tout native plants as the correct landscaping choice to best tolerate and thrive in our climate extremes. These days that is certainly being put to the test.

One shining example is this Texas Lantana, Lantana urticoides, growing practically in the concrete, at many degrees hotter than the thermometer reads on the corner of State Highway 29 (aka W University Avenue) and Wolf Ranch Parkway in Georgetown. In the spring, the plant was smothered by invasive Johnsongrass and a couple other noxious species. Now, as the dry, rain-free months have rolled on, the dead Johnsongrass is sort of a wispy garnish among the Lantana flowers.

I’m not watering the Texas Lantana in my yard. I don’t have to. It is loaded with flowers and frantic pollinators that will mean fruit for the birds. I am watering, once a week or so, Mealy Sage, Salvia farinacea. It would survive without water, but I have found a weekly drench keeps it flowering and that keeps the bumblebees going.

Bumblebee on Duelberg salvia, Salvia farinacea

That mindset, keeping up nectar sources for the insects and fruit available for migrating birds, is what determines which plants get water in my gardens. The strain of Gaillardia pulchella we offered in our chapter native plant sale last fall will keep flowering if it gets water every couple of weeks. The flowers are visited by many types of insects. Lesser goldfinches flock to the seeds. In one garden area I have a mound of red harvester ants. About every third ant is marching its way back to the mound with a Gaillardia seed held aloft.

And finally, thinking toward the fall season, those species that provide the big, fresh, nectar supply going into winter—they are getting generously watered. In my gardens those include Gregg’s Mistflower, Conoclinium greggii, White Mistflower, Ageratina havanensis, Fall Aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, and Frostweed, Verbesina virginica.

I have added more water sources around my gardens. Shallow containers like the one pictured provide water to all sizes of critters. The sticks and rocks provide landing places and access to small insects. I encourage everyone to make a few small steps to encourage stable populations of our key species in an increasingly sterile environment.

Photos by Beth Erwin.

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