Texas Gardening: Gardening with Texas Native Plants; The Wildflower Slope., 1 by frostweed

frostweed wrote:
The " Wildflower Slope" was our first project in our attempt to work with Texas Native Plants. It began in 1997 after we read an article that was published in the Arlington newspaper. It featured a yard that was a certified urban Wildscape, made up of native plants and showed how it worked to attract wildlife and give them a home.

I was very excited about the idea and called the lady to ask if I could come see it and talk to her about it. She was very gracious and explained how she had done it. I was very impressed with her place and decided that it would be great for us to try it too.

Unfortunately at the time I was totally ignorant about the concept of native plants, although I loved nature, wildflowers and animals and had been gardening organically since 1969. So, I gathered as much information as I could from books, the internet and friends, but alas native plants were very hard to find.

We had this area we call the slope because of the steep incline. It measures 10 by 80 feet and it faces south to the side street of our corner lot. It was covered with bermuda and framed by bare chain link fence, presentable but not pretty. So we chose it as the starting point in our endeavor to create a certified urban Wildscape.

I bought some wildflower seeds and scattered them on the close cut grass in the fall. Well our first spring was not spectacular but I kept checking the nurseries and searching through empty lots for wild plants and little by little we built a nice collection of plants. Some of them just volunteered on the slope when we stopped mowing and let the plants come up. Frostweed, Ironweed, Goldenrod and Primrose are some volunteers that come to mind.

Collecting and growing native plants has become a passion for us since we love the idea of plant conservation and showing that a native plant garden can just as beautiful as any filled with exotics. The Slope has served as great educational tool for the neighborhood as people stop by to ask,"What are those beautiful flowers?" and to say, "Thank you we enjoy them every time we drive by".