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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.
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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