Native Plants
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Sunday - July 24, 2016
From: Katy, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Seeds and Seeding
Title: Sequence of Seeding Wildflowers and Grasses in Texas
Answered by: Anne Van Nest
QUESTION:
In the How To article on meadow gardening, it recommends that a good chunk of your garden (50%-80%) should be native grasses. The kind mentioned in that article are typically warm season grasses. In what order should I plant - wildflowers in the fall and then grasses in the spring; grasses in the spring and then wildflowers in the fall; or both of them, either in fall or spring?ANSWER:
The Texas Department of Transportation has a good information sheet on seeding wildflowers on their website. They say "By and large, most Texas wildflowers should be planted in late summer or early fall, especially bluebonnets."
Also, the Wildflowers in Bloom website maintained by Dan Lineberger and Jerry Parsons has a lot of good tips about growing wildflowers that they have obtained from Wildseed Farms.
For information about seeding native grasses, take a look at the Native Prairies Association of Texas website where they have a page from their Tallgrass Restoration Manual. While most of their information is for large scale restoration, they do discuss the four prairie grasses and explain how to make seedballs - a fun way to seed.
They say ... Once the seedballs are dry, throw out by hand at the restoration site. The clay will protect the precious seed until rain arrives, then the seedball will melt and the seed will germinate. The clay will also keep the seed in place if the rain turns into a ‘gully-washer’.
So the timing of sowing your grasses is not as critical as with the wildflowers.
From the Image Gallery
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Time to mow bluebonnets from Smithville TX
April 12, 2012 - When is the best time to mow the seeded Bluebonnets? I have them and Drummond Phlox in my front yard. I need to clean and trim to start pulling the large numbers of Purple Hooked Sandburr.
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Failure of flameleaf sumacs to produce fruit
January 09, 2013 - Our two flame leaf sumacs produce none to little fruit. Both are about 4 years old, quite large, healthy looking; flowering this year was very good, but no fruit. What keeps them from producing fruit?
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Cottonwood trees shedding in Orion MI
June 23, 2010 - How long can I plan on my cottonwood trees (wild) shedding long wide cotton strips? This is a first for my trees. Usually it is fluffy small puffs.
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Grasses for horses in Austin
October 27, 2012 - Hello Mr. Smarty Plants
We just bought 4.5 acres in Travis County off HWY 290. We have 3 horses we keep on it but there is very little grass in the pastures. What is the best type of grass to seed ...
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Planting wildflowers on company property from Aquasco MD
April 04, 2014 - Our company wants to plant wildflowers on our property. How do I know how much seed, what type of seeds, how to care for, how to plant, basically everything? Finally, we hope to find use some deer-r...
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