Ellis County Master Gardener AssociationTexas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

Picking Heritage Fruit Trees and Vines for Beauty and Food

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When settlers were coming to Texas, they often brought plants that were familiar, including fruit trees and fruiting vines. They were also greeted by native fruit trees and vines. During the Depression and World War II, many people planted gardens to supplement their food resources, which included fruit trees and vines.

Many old homes still have heritage plants on their property, and it is those trees and vines that I am going to cover in a series over the next few issues in this newsletter. Who knows? You may find a plant or two that you want to try in the fall.

Heritage fruit trees and vines come in a variety of growth habits and types of fruit. These include: maypop, Nanking cherry, loquat (Japanese plum), chokeberry, sorb apple, buffalo berry, sand plum, elderberry, currants, crabapple, mulberry, persimmon, gooseberry, Juneberry quince, and pawpaw. Some of these you may recognize and some may be new to you, as they were
to me.

The maypop plant is a fruit-bearing vine also called a passion flower. This is a perennial vine that returns every year. It is very tolerant of soil, water, and sunlight differences, blooms from March through November under optimum conditions, provides food for butterflies and birds, and bears edible fruit. Native people used the root to treat boils and bruises. The fruit will drop once it is ripe and the pulp around the seeds is sweet.

The Nanking cherry is a bush cherry (actually closer to a plum) that tolerates different well-drained soils and loves full sun. The bush can grow to 9 feet tall and is drought and cold resistant. The berries ripen in early summer full of antioxidants, nature’s own defense against cellular damage. Flavonoids in the seeds outperform even ascorbic acid in fighting off free radicals.

 

The loquat (Japanese plum) are more tropical and need full sun and may need protection during extreme cold weather. They can grow up to 25 feet tall. They are high in essential nutrients, vitamins, minerals and fiber. The fruit tastes like a pear or apple and contains its own pectin, so no additional pectin is needed for canning. Loquat fruit is good to eat while trying to lose weight. Vitamin A promotes eyesight, especially night vision, helps maintain healthy teeth, immune system, and skeletal and soft tissue (skin and membranes around organs). It also contains vitamins B6 and B12, potassium, and manganese.

The chokeberry needs well-drained soil, full to partial shade, and can grow up to 10 feet tall. During the first year and during dry periods, the chokeberry needs a gallon of water per week.

While chokeberry has good antioxidant properties, in large quantities there are mild side effects like dry mouth, constipation and diarrhea, especially in large quantities. They may also interact with certain medications, such as blood thinners and diabetes drugs. 

Sorb apple (service tree) produces a sweet fruit that is similar to an apple or pear. The tree can grow up to 50 feet tall, prefers full sun, is not too picky of soils as long as they are well drained. Fruit ripens in late fall and becomes sweet and tasty after it has been stored and allowed to slowly ripen. It has been used along with apples to make cider. Like apples, the seeds contain hydrogen cyanide and should not be eaten.

Buffalo berry is an American native and the berries were pounded with buffalo meat to make pemmican. The berries are best eaten after the first frost. The trees themselves are rather thorny and protection, like elbow-length leather gloves, from the thorns is needed while harvesting. Like most native plants, the buffalo berry will thrive in poor soil and difficult growing conditions, including drought, heat and cold, once established.

I hope that this has piqued your interest and in the July newsletter, I will cover the sand plum, elderberry, currants, crabapples, mulberry, and persimmon.

I will also provide information on where to purchase the plants online, locally, and nearby and how to plant your plants.

For more information on growing your own fruits and nuts can be found at

https://agrilifeextension.tamu.edu/assets/plants-crops/crops-produce/fruits-tree-nuts/

by Rob Franks, ECMG

So You Need to Choose a Tree… My Experience

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Suppose a windstorm hits and splits the trunk of your Bradford Pear. Or the electric company sends a team to carve your tree’s canopy into an ugly Y-shape because the contractors who built the house put in a tree that’s grown way too big and underneath a power line. Or you are pining away for a maple tree and fall color but understand that our alkaline clay soil is very suboptimal for a maple. You want to choose a new tree but aren’t sure where to begin.

The place to start is Texas A&M Forest Service’s website.
They offer a simple tree selection guide: Texas Tree Selector.

Most residences in Ellis County have front yards that will not accommodate a large or even a medium tree. That’s because at maturity the tree will either want to grow a branch into one of your windows or its root zone, which will have a diameter that is double the height of a tree at maturity, will be impeded by the road, sidewalk, driveway or your house’s foundation. And if your neighbor has a tree of the same species (that’s common in homeowners’ associations), the roots will intermingle and share any disease they have via the roots.

So, let’s assume you want a small tree of 20 feet or less at maturity. After clicking on the link above, it gives you an express selector and a custom selector. Let’s say you choose the former. Select Ellis in the dropdown menu, then “small” for the size. If you click “show trees,” the results are four choices: Mexican plum, Mexican buckeye, rusty blackhaw, and desert willow.

These are all great trees, but let’s say I want a wider range of choices. So go back and click the second link, the “custom tree selector.” Select for a small area, a small tree, Ellis County, and fall color. This time, results yield 10 trees, including a couple from the previous list.

In my case, I selected an American smoke. I searched around and found our little darling in an online nursery with the size I wanted. I ordered and planted the tree. It is in its second year, and the photo is what it looks like as of April 16 in its second spring.

Using the Texas Tree Selector was not only easy, it turned a task that could have been overwhelming into a convenient, straightforward effort.

by Paul Thomas, ECMG

A Tasty Summer Hack for Cutworm Control

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When you dig in native soil, you may encounter curved semi-transparent insect larvae the size of your pinky. These voracious critters like to emerge and eat young plant stems, neatly cutting the plant down at ground level. Thus, they are called “cutworms.”

And that healthy tomato seedling that you transplanted a few days ago, it could be a target. You’ll know when you inspect your plant in the morning and the entire above ground part of the plant is laying on its side, shriveling up with no connection to the ground.

And so, here’s a “sweet” hack to prevent them from cutting down your transplants.
Bonus: if you have chickens, they will consider the cutworms a treat. Read on if your yard is chicken-free.

Protect your transplants from cutworms by putting a gallon ice cream container around it as a barrier. Here’s the easy procedure:

  1. Use 1- to 2-gallon ice cream containers. (You can find them at Aldi’s, for example.) Eat the ice cream therein. We know, it’s a mighty sacrifice that gardeners must make for their plants.
  2. Pull off the handle and cut out the bottom. 
  3. Cut off the ridge on top to end up with a flat band.
  4. Bury the carton around the transplant.
    It should be a couple inches deep. I use two cartons with
    tomatoes, so I can lie them on their sides in the hole, which is normally how you plant them.
  5. Enjoy your summer!

by Paul Thomas, ECMG

Herbs in the Garden

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There are so many great reasons to grow herbs in your garden, so let’s dig into the why.

1) Fresh taste

Herbs are a culinary delight that add flavor, color, or texture to your meal. We could all drive to the store and find a ground or dried version of herbs to enhance our recipes, but nothing compares to getting those same herbs fresh from your garden. Have you ever pinched a leaf off of mint and chewed it? What a burst of flavor and freshness! Imagine making an Italian meal at home and using fresh basil and oregano right out of your own garden. Now that’s Italian!

2) Colors, a feast for your eyes

Another great reason to grow herbs in your garden is for their visual appeal to the landscape. The array of colors in an herb garden can range from the deep green of rosemary or fennel to the eye-popping purple of Thai basil, or the two-toned color of pineapple sage. Additionally, you can increase the colors in your garden by growing herbs in decorative pots. The color options are almost endless and it is rewarding to find the perfect color of pottery to enhance your herb garden. In fact, many herbs are easier to grow in pots. For example, mint can be aggressive in the ground but is easy to maintain in a pot. Other herbs like lavender and rosemary prefer growing in drier conditions like a pot.

3) Aroma and smell

Herbs are easily enjoyed by their aroma. I find it almost impossible to pass by a rosemary bush without running my hands through its branches, just so I can enjoy the savory smell it gives off. The same can be said about basil and mint. While some people do not like black licorice, fennel has that distinctive smell that cannot be mistaken.

I hope to see you at the Expo on March 29, or better yet, I would love to see you in your herb garden!

 

Malcolm Avaritt, ECMGA

A Garden Journal

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William (Bill) Wordsworth said of journaling, “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way says And “we should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. We should write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.”

Now, Bill and Julia were talking about a different kind of journaling, but as a practitioner and advocate of both personal and garden journaling, I can tell you that both yield immeasurable results. Julia says that we should write because writing is good for the soul. And we gardeners know that gardening, too, is good for the soul. So, let’s explore for just a few minutes, how we can meld these two practices into a single, meaningful document that can encourage and inform our gardens — and our lives.

All of us experience triumphs and tragedies in the garden. A garden journal provides a space to reflect on these events and gives us a vehicle for recording them. Much like a personal journal, a garden journal serves as a living record of the goings-on in our garden. By recording key events, we are able to make informed decisions on the direction for our gardens in the future.

I don’t know about you, but I am meeting myself coming and going. At the end of the day, I usually can’t tell you what I have accomplished. Though I vow to “remember the details,” if I don’t write it down, I don’t remember it. And I so want to remember the small details that make my days beautiful and unique.

There are many reasons for starting a garden journal, but the best ones in my opinion are that, first, it will make you a better, more observant gardener. And, perhaps more importantly, it will make you a better, more observant, more content human being.

Journaling encourages us to slow down and pay attention to the details of our gardens. The act of simply taking the journal with us into the garden requires us to slow down and pay attention. Taking time to journal on a regular basis allows us to capture the small moments on paper, creating a record that we can revisit again and again.

Garden journals are as varied as the annuals that will be popping up in our garden centers in the next couple of months. Selecting a style is simply a matter of personal preference. Journals come in many forms, from old-school composition books to three-ring binders, leather-bound journals with fancy handmade papers, to digital programs and smartphone apps. When choosing a format, the important thing is to choose one that will encourage you to make entries on a regular basis. One that fits your style.

Maybe you are a photographer. If so, you may want to choose an online format that allows you to upload photos. Maybe you are an artist, choosing to incorporate a book that lends itself to your beautiful sketches or watercolors.

Or, maybe you are a generalist like me (code for jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none), and want to do a little bit of everything. I’m certainly not a great artist, but I do like to dabble in a bit of watercolor and sketching (remember, this is for your eyes only). I’m not a great photographer, but occasionally, I get lucky and capture just the right angle on a pollinator. I love a good list and I really love a beautifully bound blank book. I guess what I’m saying is, as the kids say, “You do you.” It’ll be wonderful, whatever you choose.

After you choose your format, set aside a time each day or even once a week to update your garden journal. The important thing is to have a regularly scheduled time and keep to it. During the growing season, I like to take a stroll around “the estate,” as we laughingly call our city lot, with my husband and a cup of coffee, After we spend some time together, oohing and aaahhhing over each bud and bloom, I take a seat on the patio and finish my coffee, then turn to my journal.

I take note of the changes I see, patterns I’ve noted, challenges in the garden or if there is something of particular interest. For instance, the morning we found the first ripe fig on the fig tree (the one we call Miss Figgy, I’m embarrassed to tell you), I made a sketch of it, then took a photo of my husband taking the first bite. We’ve been married almost 50 years, and we’ve talked about planting a fig tree since the beginning. This was our first. (And, by the way, it was delicious.)

At its core, a garden journal is a historical record of your landscape, a place to jot down your ideas about plants and the improvements that you might want to make in your garden. I like to keep an Excel spreadsheet of the different plants in my garden: the common name, botanical name, height, width, sunlight and moisture requirements, the date I planted, and the success or failure of that plant. I also have a map of my garden to make note of where the sun is at different times of the day and different times of the year. This is a great tool for deciding where new plants might thrive or for figuring out why a plant didn’t work well in its spot.

I’ve spent these last couple of frigid weeks dreaming about spring and recreating my garden journal for 2025. The Ellis County Master Gardeners have recently published a beautiful and informative journal, offering advice on monthly tasks, sharing special topics of interest to Ellis County gardeners and providing a place to track your information. I’m using that beautiful resource as a starting point for my 2025 journal.

I also have a little blank book, a blank calendar and a sketch book that I keep in my bag for those strolls around the estate. On some of those strolls, I jot down a couple of observations and move on. Some days though, I lose myself in the narrative of the way the sun is hitting the garden, or the way that the tomatoes tasted in last night’s tomato pie, or the smile on my elderly friend’s face when I delivered a Mason jar with a little bouquet of flowers picked from my garden. I might hear a song that resonates with my time in the garden, or maybe read a quote about gardening that makes me happy. I write those down, too.

If you haven’t already, I’d like to encourage you to start a garden journal this year. It can be as simple or as fancy as you, well, fancy. A garden journal is not only about the plants in your yard; it’s a memory book about what was going on in your life at the time. Especially for those of us who are (might I confess) a little obsessed with the garden; a journal is a wonderful way to document those thoughts and dreams that you can revisit in the years to come.

by Melanie Wallace, ECMG

Organize Your Seeds: An Efficient System

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I am the person who has seed packets stashed all over the house. I have a canister stuffed with new and opened packs in the pantry. I have a baggie of seed packs in my office. There are brand new varieties on the dining table and baggies of seeds saved from last year’s garden in the China cabinet. Worse yet, I don’t always look through all these seeds before I buy new ones. I really need a system to organize my resources!

This January I learned about an interesting method of organizing seed packs for compact storage and easy reference. I learned of this method while reading the online newsletter of Joe Lamp’l (a.k.a. Joe Gardener). Apparently, he has an even worse problem than me with keeping track of which seeds he already has. Joe learned this method from a neighbor and fellow gardener who also has a background in information technology. Joe’s neighbor suggested using a database system like what Amazon uses to track its merchandise. Amazon does not exactly organize its items by type or value or any characteristic. They organize their warehouses with a database of numbered bins. As products come in, they are assigned an empty bin, then the bin and product are associated in a database. When the item is needed, it’s looked up in the database and the location is known immediately.

As you can imagine, this will not be very practical if you only have a few packets to keep track of, but if you are like me, a single place with numbered slots could be a very handy way to organize seeds. In your database, you could include, for example, when the seeds were purchased, if the pack is open and suggested planting dates. The sky’s the limit. You could even include how well they did when planted.

So, to implement my plan, I purchased a couple of inexpensive 4-inch-by-6-inch card files from my inspiration ,Amazon. I also bought dividers, which really weren’t necessary. I could have made them. And as it turned out, they were a little too tall for my file box, so I had to cut them down. Next, I gathered all my seeds and started placing them in my database and then in a slot in my file. As I put each packet in, I noted its location in my Excel spreadsheet. I also included some of the information from the packet, like days to maturity. I don’t need to organize my seeds by type or alphabetize by variety. It is all there in the spreadsheet with the location of the packet. I can now easily access and manage my seed collection from my desktop, making this component of my gardening efforts more efficient and enjoyable.

by Kim Rainey, ECMG

Planting a tree? Now is the time, but here is something to consider!

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I wanted a tree in my backyard that was going to thrive and grow large because the backyard is on the east side of my house and it gets hot out there. There was a small native pecan growing along the south fence that was about 3.5 feet tall.

I wanted an oak because they tolerate our climate, are beautiful, hardy trees and support local pollinators and birds; but what kind should I plant? All oaks are not alike and many oak trees are slower growers than others. Some oaks get as large as 80 feet across when full grown and 70 to 90 feet tall, which will block the morning sun.

I decided to plant a native White Oak, which is tolerant of our climate and a rapid grower. I have a Mexican White Oak in the front, so I decided to plant a Burr Oak (which is another type of White Oak) out back. But what size tree to plant?

Many people purchase trees that are already 6 to 10 feet tall, so they “have a tree” but that tree is going to spend a lot of its energy growing roots before it grows a lot on top and that tree size will need to be staked for 1 to 2 years to keep it upright.

I chose to buy a small 1-year-old Burr Oak in a pot. The tree had not had time to grow a lot on top, but its root system was already developed for the size and would not need staking. At 3 years old, my Burr Oak was growing very rapidly. I have included pictures of the tree when first planted at three years and now after 8 years. The tree is now about 28 feet tall and has an 8-inch diameter trunk. It grows about 4 feet every year.

I included a picture of the native pecan to give you an idea of growth rates. Remember that it was 3.5 feet tall when I planted the Burr Oak; it is now about 12 feet tall.

If you need help choosing and planting trees in your yard, the Ellis County Master Gardeners can be very helpful with tree information and planting advice.

For ECMG help, call (972) 825-5175, email ecmgahelpdesk@gmail.com, or visit https://txmg.org/ellis/informative-resources.

 

by Robert Franks, ECMG

Bonjour Potager Garden

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My husband and I recently celebrated the beginning of our 50th year of marriage with a trip to France. Of course, there were jillions of fascinating, beautiful things to see, but what caught my eye were the gorgeous potager gardens. I have more than a few photos of sunflowers and eggplant and carrot tops (but, what about the Eiffel tower, he asked?).

As you may know, a potager garden is defined as “a kitchen garden that grows edible plants, herbs, fruits and flowers.” Potager gardening originates from France and has evolved over many centuries to describe, simply, a garden that is both beautiful and edible.

I never studied French, but my google-ator tells me that the word “potager” comes from the French word for soup, potage, and that these gardens were originally designed to gather ingredients for soup. I kind of love that.

I have actually been interested in potager gardens for several years now. That interest is what brought me to the Master Gardeners in the first place. I love to cook (well, actually, I love to eat), and everything I read about cooking leads me to the importance of using excellent ingredients, locally sourced. Well, what could be more local than my own front yard?

When we moved back to the metroplex almost 3 years ago, the world was at the tail-end of the pandemic, and if you remember, housing was hard to come by. We put offers on a couple of houses – only to find that someone had outbid us during our trip back to the real estate office. But, I know that all things happen for a reason, and in retrospect, I’m so happy that those other houses didn’t work out.

Our particular house sits on a very wooded lot. In fact, the entire back yard is in almost complete shade. Since its purchase was made before I fell in love with gardening, that was fine with me. “Less to mow!” I thought.

However, that shady backyard has led to some challenges when it comes to planting a vegetable garden. Where? I thought, can I plant those tomatoes? For me, the only choice was among the flowers and shrubs in the front yard. I happen to think that vegetable plants are absolutely beautiful, so that was not a problem. Fortunately, we do not belong to an homeowners association (which may or may not have the ability to thwart your efforts to grow your soup ingredients in the front yard – check with your own HOA before setting forth).

In Texas, it is not illegal to have a vegetable garden in your front yard. Local governments and cities are prohibited from creating or enforcing regulations that prevent homeowners from planting vegetable gardens in their front yards. 

The Texas Right to Farm Act applies to all agricultural operations, which includes growing vegetation for human food. However, some communities and homeowners’ associations may restrict the amount of non-lawn space in front yards. If you want to start a vegetable garden in your front yard, you should check for any regulations in your neighborhood. 

But, since we had none, I sallied forth. Herbs among the marigolds and echinacea. Tomatoes and rosemary down the bed from the fig trees. Tulip and daffodil bulbs around and about. You get my drift.

I was excited to discover last week that the overarching topic for this year’s Master Gardener calendar is “The Edible Garden.” How perfect! I can’t wait to see what the Master Gardeners have come up with. I know that it will be amazing.

I’ll continue to keep you updated on my progress in my own edible garden after we move through the holidays and into the planting season. In the meantime, (if it ever gets cold) I plan to sit by the fire with my graph paper and seed catalogues and dream and plan for the spring. As the sign in my garden says, “Grow your food, Feed your soul.”

by Melanie Wallace, ECMG

How To Preserve Herbs

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I can’t think of anything more satisfying than picking fresh herbs from my own garden.  Even before I ventured into vegetable gardening, I was growing basil, thyme, oregano, parsley and rosemary.   My first crop of basil turned into four batches of pesto that I was proud to share with family and friends. Boasting that the creamy, herby sauce came from my very own garden produced the “oos” and “ahhs” my gardening efforts deserved.

This is the time in the growing season where I am facing a bumper crop of many herbs and am looking at how I’m going to store these gems of culinary additions, so I can enjoy them throughout the rest of the year. There are many articles on the web and a good number of YouTube videos on how to harvest herbs for long-term storage. Here are a few options on how to store your herbs to enjoy until your next planting season.

There are three main ways to store your herbs for long-term use: air drying, dehydrator, and freezing. Air drying is the oldest and possibly easiest of the three mentioned.

If you’re lucky enough to own a dehydrator, then follow your manufacturer’s instructions.  Oven or microwave drying works for the most part to dehydrate your herbs, but these both cook the herbs a bit, which results in reducing the essential oils that decreases the flavor. So only use this method if you’re running out of time or have no other options.

Freezing is probably my favorite.  I find it to be quick and easy and it requires that I clean out my deep freezer before Thanksgiving to make room for the additional ice cube trays I use to produce the frozen cubes of fresh herbs. Win-Win in my book! 

A few important tips before you dry or freeze your herbs:

  1. Knowing when and how to select your herbs to preserve and store is key. Toward the end of the growing season, you want to take advantage of the last of the summer’s bounty and harvest the remaining herbs you have in the garden. But any time you have a surplus of herbs, go ahead and dry or freeze what you have leftover from the herbs you used for cooking.
  2. Pick your herbs in the morning. They are at their best flavor earlier in the day and will retain more of their essential oils, thus making them more flavorful when you’re ready to use them from their preserved state.
  3. Cut stems 3 to 4 inches from the top and then shake them a bit to help rid of any dirt and bugs, or what we like to refer to as “hitchhikers” that may be holding onto the leaves.
  4. Once you bring them inside the house, you can give them a good quick rinse in some cool water.

Now for the process of air drying or freezing.

For air drying: If you rinsed your herbs, be sure to dry them thoroughly between layers of paper towels, then allow them to dry on the counter for about an hour or so before you proceed.

  • Remove about an inch to an inch and a half of leaves from the bottom of the stems – this will allow you to bundle and tie the herbs together.
  • Group three to four stems of herbs together.
  • Tie stems together with a string, rubber band, or a twist tie.
  • Hang upside down from a rod or rope in an area of your home away from direct sunlight but with good airflow and lowest humidity (for us Texans, that is a little more difficult).
  • Keep checking on the stems periodically to be sure the ties don’t need to be tightened. As the herb stems dry, they will shrink and loosen from the ties.
  • After 2 to 3 weeks, the herbs should have completed their drying process.
  • Now they are ready to be stored in airtight containers. Label and date your containers, then place them away from heat and direct sunlight.

An alternate method to the above air-drying process is to place the three to four stems inside a paper bag and then tie the paper bag around the stems and hang upside down.  Some people think this helps to speed up the drying process plus as the herbs dry, if any leaves fall off the stems, the bag will catch them. You will still need to make sure the actual leaves aren’t touching as that will allow moisture to develop mold.

If at any time you see mold developing on the herbs you’re drying, dispose of that whole stem. Once you see mold, it isn’t just on that area, as spores will likely be all over the leaf stems even if you can’t see
them yet.

On to my favorite way to preserve herbs: freezing. Follow the above tips before the drying process. Once you have rinsed your herbs, finely chop them and put 1 to 3 teaspoons of the chopped herbs into individual ice cube tray compartments. Then cover each about 2/3 of the way full with clear, cool water. Remember that water will expand as it freezes and will take up more space. Once frozen, they will keep for 3 months or longer depending on your freezer. I like to pop the cubes of frozen herbs and put them into a freezer-safe plastic bag, label them with the name of the herb and date when frozen and store them in the freezer until I am ready to use them. When I’m making stews, soups, or sauces that require fresh herbs, I use two to three cubes in the recipe, and I’m set. Remember that 1 teaspoon of dried herbs equals 3 teaspoons of fresh.

You can also prepare your favorite pesto sauce and store it in the individual ice cube tray compartments. Once frozen, pop them out and store in freezer-safe bags in the freezer. Those are usually good for 3 to 6 months, depending on your freezer type.

One of my favorite meals is fresh pasta with pesto sauce. I start by sauteing chicken or shrimp and remove the meat/fish from the pan; then I add the pesto cubes and allow them to melt. Add hot pasta water to the sauce to thin it to the consistency desired and return the meat/fish to the dish and add the pasta to the pan and combine. It’s so easy and fabulous.

There are numerous articles, and YouTube videos on the Web to research. Here are a few I found for this article:

https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-dry-and-store-herbs-1403397

https://youtu.be/8aKp2CiOwEs?si=fXd2Xfog96HLFDS9

I hope you will try one of these methods for preserving your fresh herbs from your garden – you will be amazed at how easy it is.  

By Beth Norris, ECMG

 

 

 

Sharing Your Yard with Wildlife 

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As a young boy 65 years ago, I lived in the White Rock area of Dallas. We had a very busy yard with scores of butterflies, lightning bugs, birds, lizards, garden snakes, and toads. This was, of course, before the wide use of pesticides (like DDT) and herbicides by homeowners and commercial-yard companies. Today, too many children do not know what a lightning bug is and never have seen them.

In order for native insects and birds to thrive around your home, there needs to be three critical things: water, cover for protection and raising their young, and food, like insects and seeds.

WATER ~ North Central Texas (Blackland Prairie and Eastern Cross Timbers) has issues with water resources and often prolonged drought. As the population increases, it will get worse.  It is not surprising, then, that providing water for plants and animals is important if you want to encourage birds and insects to visit your yard. The good news is that Texas was covered with native plants long before the first plow ever came. Those native plants were acclimatized to Texas weather extremes and had lived for thousands of years just fine without additional water. Native animals suffer more under drought conditions, but they are still around. You can help by providing water in small bowls and shallow plates for drinking and bathing. I use clay pot trays. For butterflies, use a shallow clay pot tray filled with wet sand in it (a puddler). A small pond, fountain, or pool work well and can encourage toads and other small animals. In every case you must make sure that the water source doesn’t go dry.

COVER ~ Cover can be provided by   Keeping a small pile of twigs in the yard or planting low growing ground cover to provide protection. Lightning bugs lay their eggs in leaves on the ground and their larva shelter there during the winter. Most of those leaves will decompose and be gone by spring, but you will be able to enjoy the lightning bugs. I have had a family of chickadees living in my brush pile for a couple of years where the adults found food for their chicks and were protected from predators and the weather. I also have planted native vines, shrubs, and trees for cover and food for birds (such as native oak trees that provide food and cover for more than 450 species of moths and butterflies). Stems from plants like sunflowers, if left standing, provide shelter for bees that cut holes in them and lay their eggs. Note that native bees are usually solitary and are not aggressive.

FOOD ~ Food resources can be just as varied as the insects and birds that feed on them. I put out bird feeders for seed, mealworms, and fruit to supplement bird diets; however, I have to be aware of the need to refill them because birds can become reliant on the food source. Most birds (even seed-eaters) feed their chicks a diet of insects. Native plants such as milkweed provide food and shelter for butterflies (Monarch butterflies). I put fennel, marigolds, and parsley in my vegetable garden to lure insects away from my veggies and also lure birds and predatory insects to come get the bad guys. In addition to native oaks, be sure to look for native fruit trees such as pawpaws, persimmons, black cherries, serviceberry, and sugar hackberry.

Unfortunately, most yards are useless for conserving birds and beneficial insects. New homes are given the traditional two and 12 plantings (two trees and 12 bushes), which can cause more harm than good. Two trees like Bradford pears not only do no good but will have to be eventually cut down. Twelve non-native shrubs like boxwoods, privet hedge, and wax-leaf ligustrum are very poor food resources for wildlife and you will constantly be trimming them. Why do we use them? They are easily found in plant nurseries. The good news is more nurseries, home stores, and at least one major Texas grocery chain are beginning to offer more native plants as the demand for them increases.

Starting your plantings of natives is not hard to do, in fact, I recommend that you start small and let your landscape evolve with new plantings and seed. You need to decide what you want to start with and what to replace. Many wildflowers can be started from seed where all you do is remove the grass, gently rake the soil, and scatter seed in the Fall and wait for spring. I have provided some reference sources (with pictures) for you to check out. Once established the natives will require very little water, fertilizer, or tending which saves you work and water, and saves you money.

If you live in an area that has a HOA (homeowners association) you should know that in 2013, Texas amended Section 202.007 of the property code subsection (a)(d-1); it says that HOAs cannot prohibit a property owner from using drought-resistant landscaping and natural turf grasses. I simply landscaped with native plants in a way that mimicked everyone else’s yard and the change was gradual.

Consider planting natives at your home, schools, businesses, public parks, and places of worship.

Our areas here in North Central Texas are zones 8a and 8b.

The National Wildlife Fund has a website to help you discover which native plants will do good
in your area: /https://nativeplantfinder.nwf.org/

Other good sources are the Native Plant Society of Texas:
https://www.npsot.org/resources/native-plants/native-plants-database

and Texas A&M University Earth-Kind Plant Selector:  https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/

By Rob Franks, ECMG