Texas Gardening: Gardening with Texas Native Plants & Wildflowers, part 16., 1 by frostweed

frostweed wrote:
Hello Msfeatherflower, first of all let me say that I started that bed 8 years ago.
The area was covered with a mixture of grasses which we mowed regularly. The first fall we started by mowing the grass very short raking it and scattering two or three packets of wildflower seeds which I had purchased.
We got some flowers the following spring, but not many. We mowed it all down when they were finished.
All during that same year we went to empty lots and fields and gathered seeds and plants, like Mexican hat, coreopsis, mexican primrose, and whatever we could find.
We also purchased some plants and planted them in a progressive row so we could keep mowing the grass that wasn't covered by plants.
Eventually after three or four years the whole area was covered and the grass did'nt need mowing anymore. It did pop up here and there in between the plants and I pulled that grass out as needed.
The whole area is now solidly covered with plants and the grass is gone, because the plants shade it out.
We do not have problems with erosion, because we never let the soil be bare and we keep a mulch on if there are any exposed areas.
I cut all the plants down by hand in the winter and fertilize with compost, we shred all our plants and compost them, and that is how we got to this point.
This is how it looks in the winter after cutting.