Here is a shot of one of my desert willows! I just love these blooms, and their scent!
mel
Gardening with Texas Native plants & Wildflowers. Part 7
Beautiful Mel! Isin't it fun? Josephine.
Josephine, your yard looks great. I have been very busy lately since the rain, and working on sorting pictures. I have not been ignoring you and this forum.
TXMel, our Desert willow has stopped blooming and started growing very fast. Ours are the same bloom color as yours. Very beautiful plants. I think my Triple Purple Daturas will soon be pure white. Every generation of seeds produces less purple.
trois
Hello Trois, Please don't stop posting your beautiful pictures, we need you.
Josephine.
I am sending pictures of different wild petunias. Some are decidedly pink, others are definately purple. Some have long slender leaves, others have the rounder leaves. The colors differ on either plant.
1. This group seem to be mostly pink. They also have the smaller leaves.
trois
2. This one is definitely pink. It also has the long, thin leaves that look almost like Oleander.
3. Purple or pink. This one could go either way for me. Maybe my vision isn't the greatest for determining color.
4. Purple. Last year all were this color. This year we have many more, with a lot of color variation.
5. Purple. Is it normal to have this much color difference? Also, we transplanted a group from the ditch with the short rounded leaves last year and now several have the long thin leaves. It is keeping me confused.
trois
Also, the wild Guara is blooming with a lot more pink this year than last, which was almost completely white.
trois
I am having the same strange thing happen Trois, this one reverted from the tall Mexican petunia cutting, to wild petunia.
May be Veronica or Hazel will be able to explain it to us.
Surprise! look what I have Trois, I planted 10 Pride of Barbados seeds and this is what I got. Pretty neat, don't you think?
I don't know if they will get to blooming size this year, but I can't wait to see them in bloom. Thank you very much, I will keep you up on their progress.
They are looking good. Get at least one of them in the dirt at once and it should bloom this year. Full sun. Mulch around it heavy this fall and it should return from the roots. This one froze to the ground last winter.
This message was edited Jul 20, 2005 5:09 PM
I just finished reading this thread from 1 thru 7. It was facinating! The first thing that it inspired me to do is learn to use my daughter's digital camera so that I will have something to share.
It also inspired me to share some plants. This spring I wanted to move the Katie's dwarf Mexican Petunias because I wanted evergreen plants in the front beds. I dug a bed about 2'x20' and planted them in a double row which is now beautiful. Of course, I still have new ones in my front beds, so if anyone wants some, let me know. They are also going to seed right now so I can save seeds. Most of mine are purple, but I also have pink and white.
I also have a lot of butterfly weed (asclepias curassavica) seeds. I let the seeds go this year so next spring I should have lots of babies.
I will probably not try for "pure" native, but love my widow's tears and my wine cups which were given to me by a friend in the Hill Country. I am trying for drought-tolerant, low maintenance. The heat in Dallas is a killer.
You have a wonderful group and the desire to learn and to share is marvelous. I'll keep reading and now that I have caught up, I can make a timely response if I have one.
I hope to make some of the roundups and get to meet some of you.
Chnall! Welcome to the thread, your comments are very inspiring.
You say you have read the entire thread? Wow, that is a lot of reading, thank you so much.
We would love to meet you also. We will be having the Dallas area Plant Swap here in Arlington on Sunday September 25th. I hope you will be able to make it.
Go to the Sticky thread at the top of the Texas Gardening Forum and you will find it, and all the other special events listed there.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Josephine.
Frostweed, thank you. I have already signed up. Earlier someone was asking about transplanting now. I have transplanted butterfly week and Mexican Petunias several times lately and as long as I water them and protect them from the sun they recover from their wilt and come back (I pulled them up by the roots.) I use old metal plant stands with a 12" saucer as a roof to shade them.
If given a choice I would prefer to have the thread with stictly original Texas natives because being a Texan I love learning more about my State and to have a site that was nothing but native plants would be interesting and educational. I can go to other threads and see postings of other plants.
It would be helpful to see all three categories to help us learn not only what is native but also what is not native but has done well in Texas.
Ultimately a native database would be nice... similar to the plantfiles, but divided state by state, with check boxes for the states that they are native to. I think you would find that numerous plants are "native" to numerous states, due to settlers bringing their seeds and plants from their homelands when they originally came to settle and live in "the new world".
We are into Geneaology, therefore we understand that plants, as well as people came to this country in various forms and measures.... I do not believe that there is a TRUE native.... plant or Texan. That's the way I think of it.... we ALL came from Somewhere else!
mel
I agree.
But, where did native Americans come from?
I would agree with what has been said, that native plants can be native to more than one region,
but that doesn't make them less native to Texas, that means that they grow in other areas as well.
The ones that we can say are native only to Texas, are the Texas Endemics.
So with endemics we can claim they grow only in Texas, with the other natives we can say the grow in Texas and are Texas natives.
Let the other states where they also grow claim them as native to their state, if they care to, we don't need to worry about that.
Again our purpose is to bring to light the many plants that live here and have been ignored.
Josephine.
Adam and Eve.
; )
I found a total of Ruellia purple,pink or white flowered species native to Texas. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://plants.usda.gov/maps/thumbs/RU/RUMA9_tm.gif&imgrefurl=http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/plant_profile.cgi%3Fsymbol%3DRUELL&h=110&w=110&sz=3&tbnid=c9U6tl7MGWMJ:&tbnh=80&tbnw=80&hl=en&start=20&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRuellia%2Bmalacosperma%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG
The flowers in all of them are very similar. The leaves vary. (I did find out that "Katie" is a dwarf variety of R. britoniana). This points to a very genetically rich genus.
So there is the possibility that you may be dealing with more than one species. Even within a species, there are many plants that exhibit variations in leaf size and shape. An East Texas native comes to mind: the Sassafras, Sassafras albidum. The leaf shape can vary, but 3 distinct leaf shapes are most common, often on the same tree. Other plants are greatly influenced by growing conditions. You don't suddenly get a genetically different plant growing from the old roots. Growing conditions had to have changed for that plant. There is also the possibility that a seedling of a hybrid grew out between the old twigs.
Some plants hybridize naturally out in the wild. Two Texas natives, the Texas Live Oak, Quercus fusiformis, and the Virginia Live Oak, Quercus virginiana hibridize easily and as you travel from the coast, through Central Texas and into the Hill Country you can see the variations caused by hybridization. Names are an issue among botanists over naming live oaks. Some lump all live oaks under one name, Quercus virginiana. Others make the Texas Live Oak a subspecies. While still others give the tree its own species name.
I can think fo 2 examples of plants greatly influenced by their growing conditions:
The Quihoui Privet, Ligustrum quihoui. I posted photos in Part 5 on June 8th. The first photo shows the shrub in partial shade. The next 4 photos show flowers from that shrub. The panicles (bunch of flower clusters) are very compact and dense. You can see the leaves clearly in the flower photos. The last 3 photos ( last one past several other postings) show another Quihoui Privet shrub growing about 50 feet from the first, but growing out in full sunlight. The panicles are longer and not as dense. The leaves have a slightly gray hue and fold up in half along the mid-vein. At first, I thought these were 2 distinctly different shrubs — very similar but different.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/518448/
The Water Primrose, Ludwigia peploides. This one I haven't posted yet. Plants growing out of the water have narrower and thinner leaves edged in red. There aren't as many leaves on the plant. The stems have a reddish tinge as well. The whole plant grows closer to the ground. The primroses growing in the water have wide bright green lusher-looking leaves. Everything about the plant is greener looking. The leaves are also slightly thicker. This is the photo of it growing out of the water.
This is a photo of Water Primrose growing in our pond.
I have moved the list to - http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/531930/ to make it easy to look at if you want to! Mitch
This message was edited Jul 23, 2005 1:59 PM
Forgot to mention that was just the Trees and Shrubs!!! The wildflower list is here:
http://enature.com/fieldguides/view_default.asp?curGroupID=11&source=&parkid=&fromWhere=&searchText=&allSpecies=yes&shapeID=0&lshapeID=0&curAbbr=&lgFromWhere=natives&curPageNum=1&lastView=list&lastGroup=11&lastRegion=1682&lastFilter=4&lastShapeName=&trackType=&curRegionID=1682&size=&habitat=&fruit=&color=&sortBy=family&viewType=thumb&shapeName=&curFamilyID=®ionSelect=1682®ionZIP=
Hello Everybody, I have been busy posting on the color picture threads so I haven't had much time to post here, but I don't want you to think that I have forgotten.
I guess I probably will never know what caused my Mexican petunia to revert to native but I must say I am glad it did, because now I have both kinds.
This heat is keeping me busy, trying to keep the plants alive, also I am doing a lot of potting for the Plant Swap in September, some things are doing better than others, but all in all, I will have a lot of plants to share, which makes me very happy.
Josephine.
My flame acanthus is just loaded this year. It was a one gallon when I planted it just last year. The hummers just love to stop by several times a day!
Melanie
Mine are doing very well too. It is so much fun to watch those hummingbirds, they are adorable. By the way, I have 18 of the Flame Acanthus potted for those who want some. Josephine.
Our Cypress Vines are blooming heavy and the Hummers are really going for them early in the mornings.
Dont Cypress Vines go everywhere?
Yes, and we like it that way. They always look better than what they are growing on. They don't seem to hurt anything that I can see.
You have a big place... I am looking for a small vine to grow in the ft of the house... I have a trumpet thanks to Frostweed (thanks again) in the back fence but the ft ... any ideas for a native? So far they all look out of control! Mitch
You could try a Passionflower vine they are not too wild, and besides they die to the ground in the winter, so they will never get too big. You could also try
Scarlet Clematis, Clematis texensis, It is a very pretty vine and is a slow grower, herbacious perennial. Josephine.
Passionvines will attract butterflies, they are the larval food of Zebra Longwings, Julia Longwings and the Gulf Frittillary.
Are they well behaved? I read a few horror stories in other threads that said they take over everywhere... I have a passion vine coming from LA I think... and trying to work on a trade for a Scarlet Clematis. maybe can stick one of them out there. My wife saw a photo of black eyed susan vine and thought it would be nice I said no way!
Sometimes you will get shoots come up here and there on tthe passion flower, but I just pot those up and move them or I give them to friends, not problem that I can see, but then I am quite tolerant.
tolerant but with stunning results . . . my wife wants our yard now to match yours... she even mentioned taking out our pond because "Josephine did not have one" She did not like the little fig I brought home untill she saw yours - (by the way the pond won and is staying!)