By Stephen Brueggerhoff, CEA – Horticulture, Brazos County AgriLife Extension; published 10/14/2025

All images unless otherwise noted by Stephen Brueggerhoff

I often refer to the fall season as our second spring, with native flowering plants expressing brilliant colors in natural areas before a short winters rest. Fall is a great time for viewing the beauty of Texas landscapes, as well as prime time to plant both perennials for permanence and annuals by seed for our renowned spring wildflower season.

Seasonal Color Viewing on Your Travels

As you botanize speeding along the backroads and highway, you may see broad bands of yellow appearing like a sheen across pastures and prairies. Closer inspection reveals the brilliance of perennial Goldenrod (Solidago sp.), expressing waste high, sun yellow wands that gracefully bow in the wind. You may notice other yellow-flowering plants such as 3-feet tall coneflower (Rudbeckia sp.) Coneflower is a member of the same plant family as sunflowers, the Asteraceae. What looks like one single flower are uniform ray petals surrounding a brown, cone-shaped structure made of hundreds of individual complete flowers. Once pollinated, these plants are very successful in producing future generations via seed.

Recommended Native Vines

Benefits for using native plants in the home garden include best resource conservation practices: using less water and limited fertilization. These plants also provide food for wildlife in the form of nectar and pollen. There are quite a few native plant species that can enhance your home landscape and come in all shapes and sizes. For vining plants try Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), a vigorous evergreen growing to 50-foot and producing large 2-inch orange trumpet-shaped flowers fading to a golden throat. The vine blooms on new growth in full sun from end of March through May and intermittent through summer. Crossvine forms paired tendrils at the leaf petiole, grasping onto structures and running along a fence or gracefully cascading over an arbor. Explore Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), forming delicate 2-inch-long tube-shaped flowers that bloom from spring through early summer. Coral honeysuckle forms a spiraling vine rather than tendrils to hold itself and may need tying for support. Both vining plants attract hummingbirds and Crossvine appears to also be a favorite of bees.

Recommended Native Shrubs

American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is a deciduous shrub with graceful arching stems that tolerates occasional saturated soils. Individual shrubs can reach 5 feet tall and wide, and the payoff are clusters of magenta berries clasping in bunches about 6 to 7-inches apart along outward facing stems in late summer through fall. The shrub can be grown in the understory and make sure to place it in the landscape with dappled shade exposure. For full sun and well-draining and dry soil, you may try Barbados cherry (Malpighia glabra), a native shrub that has the potential to reach 6-feet tall. It offers petite wrinkled leaves and produces clusters of small flowers across the surface of its canopy. This shrub is semi-evergreen, meaning it has the potential to retain leaves in milder climates. The shrub will tolerate shearing and formal pruning to form a dense hedge for ornament or privacy. Finally, Turk’s Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is a shade tolerant woody sub-shrub of our forested areas, with arching single stems that reach 4-foot tall. Unique turban-shaped and brilliant red flowers are produced in spring and again in fall, emerging as a resource for migrating hummingbirds. Texas A&M AgriLife Texas Superstar® program promotes Turk’s Cap cultivars ‘Pam Puryear’ with soft pink flowers, and variegated ‘Fiesta’ with yellow and white splotched leaves.

Garden Bed Prep for Spring Wildflowers

October through early November is a great time to plant seeds for a spring wildflower show. Preparing your yard for these beauties is a simple process: identify areas with full sun exposure, till the soil where appropriate and create open spaces where the seed can be placed in direct contact with the soil. Lightly press in and cover the seed with a very thin layer of fine soil or organic matter, then water in the seeds with a lawn sprinkler. You may have to water a few more times in the following weeks to mimic rainfall and encourage germination.

Seed Mixes

Seed can be purchased in bulk or in handy single packets. Be aware that some packets marketed as wildflower mixes may contain non-native annuals. You will have to familiarize yourself with plant names on the packet if you wish to exclusively cultivate Texas native plants. Texas wildflower mixes will contain a combination of easy to recognize wildflowers like the bright red clusters of Indian paintbrush (Castilleja indivisa). Some include pastel Pink evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa). Butterfly gaura (Oenothera lindheimeri) sports petite pink to pure white ½-inch butterfly-shaped flowers that nod at the end of a 2-foot-tall flower stalk. Winecup (Callirhoe involucrata) best describes this beauty, offering chalice-shaped two-inch wide flowers with deep maroon petals off-set by a whitish spot toward the flower center. Winecup appears to crawl along the ground up to three-feet long and attracts butterflies and bees. Bluebonnets! These lupines are the beauty we would like to bring to the ball. While you may see smaller pockets of seeded bluebonnets at local vistas, you will see higher populations as you travel west.

Our second spring is here, offering beauty and color coming out of the doldrums of summer. Time to prepare your yard and garden by sowing wildflower seeds for a true spring show. Browse online and explore Texas A&M Forest Service, using the search tool to look for the article ‘Wildflower Establishment’. Tune in your radio for my show Garden Success airing weekly, 12 pm on Thursdays on KAMU-FM 90.9 and let’s talk wildflowers. Get your garden ready for spring wildflowers, and I look forward to seeing you in the garden.