- Howdy, I'm John Hart Asher, This week on "Central Texas Gardener," let's explore earth friendly gardens.

Laura O'Toole banished turf grass for native grasses and perennials.

Andrea DeLong-Amaya from the Wildflower Center picks a few tried and true options from her new book, "The Texas Native Plant Primer."

Garden Consultant Colleen Dieter shows us how to pick a nursery plant, and Daphne Richards answers your questions, so let's get growing right here, right now.

- [Announcer] "Central Texas Gardener" is made possible by generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden, Diane Land and Steve Adler, and by the Travis County Master Gardeners Association.

(bright music) - Biking along country roads inspired Laura O'Toole to rip out lawn for native plants.

- Last summer, this was all, all of it was Bermuda.

The end of the spring and into the summer, I took up all the Bermuda.

This is a shade mix of grasses, you've got windmill grass, you've got some buffalo grass, you've got some gramas.

Hello, my name is Laura O'Toole, and my husband Brian and I bought this property in 2015.

And the reason we bought it is because we are on the edge of this wild area and we just think it's beautiful, we love being close to nature.

The people who had lived here before planted San Augustine and Bermuda, and then they had a bunch of fruit trees, nothing that should be here.

And so, I have spent the last seven years now trying to turn this back into what it would've been had they left it wild, except that it needs to be a little curated because we do have an HOA.

So I would say that I want it to look as wild as possible, as to have as many native plants as possible, and in particular native grasses and still have it pleasing enough to the eye that the Homeowners Association will be happy with it.

And so far, they're thrilled.

Because we're on a slope, we get some rainwater coming down and so we created walkways.

And then this is a kind of dam break where if the water comes down, it will be stopped and then it will be absorbed into the ground.

My personal journey started when I began to learn about native grasses and native forbs at our place in Menard, we have a little ranch in Menard.

And so, I started studying how to renew the grasslands that had all been grazed down at our place by sheep and goats, and once we got rid of the livestock that the owners before had, some of the native grasses started coming back, but a lot of the invasives also came back.

And so, I began to learn a lot about native grasses in Texas.

Another thing that our previous owners had planted is tons and tons of Asian jasmine, I mean, the Asian jasmine was everywhere, it was half of the front yard, it was all where the pond is.

And once I got rid of the Asian jasmine, I began to experiment with native grasses.

And I started with big muhly, switchgrass, Gulf Coast muhly and big bluestem.

I knew that little bluestem grew really well because it's all in the back there where we hike, but I didn't know if the other grasses would grow and they did and amazingly so and they were beautiful.

And so, I began to expand the native grasses around the yard as I ripped up the invasives and the non-natives.

And I have a lot of the lawn sedge that I've planted.

Another favorite of mine for the shady areas is the inland sea oats, I think are just beautiful.

I have some non-natives because, you know, they're pretty.

What made me fall in love with grasses in the first place is probably the journey that I started taking in Menard, you know, trying to figure out how to regenerate our grasses.

And I started studying Bamberger Ranch, David Bamberger's place, and that was very inspiring, and then I'd walk around our place and go, "Oh my gosh, we have so much work to do."

And now we're kind of in the process of having professionals help us with that.

But we also ride bikes a lot out there.

The best way to learn about grasses is on side roads, or right of ways.

I wasn't really a gardener and my best friend is a gardener and she has beautiful vegetable gardens, but she's a great cook and so that was kind of her hook.

My other good friend had beautiful gardens because she loved beautiful flowers and that was her hook.

I needed a hook and it couldn't just be grasses, you know.

So my hook became, what do grasses do for the landscape and for nature?

If you take out the non-native grasses and put native grasses back, what you notice is worms come back and beetles are back and flying things are back, and, you know, then you start paying attention to host plants.

The pond project, I'd always wanted a pond.

And my husband promised me a pond for our 30th wedding anniversary, which is coming up.

Eric Arnston and his wife Ana showed up and he is a very experienced pond builder.

And so, we sort of got to talking about his idea and his muse of ponds.

And he says, "I've kind of got this vision of Jacob's Well, you know, to where that's sort of my muse."

And I was like, "Oh, that'd be great."

The only advice I gave, I said, "I want it to look like it's always been here."

And he said, "Okay."

When he finished, it really did, it really did.

He said, "This is a habitat.

He said, "This is a biological habitat, and what will happen is, you know, we have these, they're called biofalls at the top and it will circulate the water, you know, through the pond, and over time, it will grow algae and plants and those are your natural filtration."

I asked him, I said, "Well, can my dog get in there?"

And he goes, "Oh yeah, your dog can get in there, you can get in there."

It's been the most fun I've had and the best addition to this yard, way, way more than I could have anticipated.

Another great mom and pop shop, Heartland Sprinklers, came and figured out how to do a high pressure pump system out of the tank because I said, "I want to be able to irrigate with cistern water out of my cistern."

One of the things I've been trying to do is encourage my neighbors to have pollinator gardens in their yard.

And when I was talking to my friend about it, who is familiar with Doug Tallamy, she said, "Have you heard of Doug Tallamy's Homegrown National Park?"

His concept is if everyone dedicated a portion of their yard to natural habitat, we could recreate on private property essentially a highway for migrating pollinators.

Once I put the sign in the front yard that I got from Doug Tallamy's Homegrown National Park, people started coming over and asking me what it was.

And that gave me an opportunity to explain to my neighbors what I've been doing all this time, (laughs) you know, ripping up grasses and putting, you know, habitat in my front yard.

And they were like, "Oh, that's such a great idea," you know, and it kind of, it's sort of a light bulb effect, you know?

If everybody had just a patch in our neighborhood on our street, everybody could have, you know, bunches of butterflies and bees and, you know, critters to look at.

It is so much fun when you take that approach, it is so much more fulfilling.

It was such so therapeutic for me to rip up all of this non-native grasses and the invasive plants and to feel like I'm part of the solution.

Inviting wildlife in rather than trying to keep them out.

But we need to learn to live alongside wildlife.

And it can be messy, it can look messy at times, it doesn't look like a golf course, but I think it's prettier that way, you know, it's just changing the way you think about it, so.

And I live in a neighborhood with an HOA and the HOA president was walking by my yard the other day and just loved it, it can be done.

- We're all looking for easy care native plants, and today we are here to show you a few.

Andrea DeLong-Amaya, Director of Horticulture at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, highlights tried and true options from her new book, "The Texas Native Plant Primer: 225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden."

How you doing, Andrea?

- I'm doing great, thanks for having me.

- It's wonderful to have you here.

Well, I'm excited to talk about this book.

- Me too.

- It's chock full of wonderful information.

- Thank you.

- Why did you write the book?

- Timber Press, the publishing company, approached the Wildflower Center about doing it 'cause we're all about Texas native plants.

And personally I just really want to be able to share my passion for gardening with native plants, and so it was a perfect mix.

- There's a quote I have to say here 'cause I think it's really great.

You say, "These elegant, quirky, resilient, mysterious, healing, inspiring, calming and thrilling plants will deepen curiosity and guide you towards a blissful and occasionally wretched gardening."

- (laughs) Did I say that?

- And I thought, that's a wonderful statement, yeah, would you like to elaborate a little bit on that?

'cause that's a lot of adjectives.

- Yeah, yeah, and it can be wretched too, sure, yeah.

Well, it is tricky to garden in Texas because we have such a wide range of conditions.

The hope is that the book will guide people through how to do that in the best way possible.

- Well, wonderful.

I love the way the book is organized, you sort of have an intro making a case, some great guidance before you get into all the species that you have.

So let's first just back up a little bit and say, for those who don't know, what is a native plant?

- Yeah, that's kind of a tricky one to tackle and it's very complicated.

But I think a good summary would be a plant that occurs naturally where it evolved without human introduction, and then layering on the geographic information because, you know, where is a native plant native to?

So, you know, Texas is a big state, so you wanna say, "Is it native to East Texas or West Texas or the Bull Creek drainage?"

And kind of narrowing it down.

And really why it's important is gonna depend on your goals for your landscape.

- We have native plants that are native to Texas, but they also occur like in Virginia.

But if we source that material from Virginia, it might not do so well, why is that the case?

- Yeah, that's a good point, like, even the same species can have different genetics in different locations because they've adapted to the conditions where they're growing.

- Right.

- So they may be cold hardier or more drought resistant in different places.

- Right, there's some definitions you make for adapted, naturalized and invasive plants as well as the native.

So what's the deal with sort of those three?

- So adapted plants would be perhaps plants that are not native but do well in people's gardens, and people use those a lot, you know?

- Sure.

- I think of something like the pink skullcap for example.

It's not native to Texas but it's native in Mexico, it grows well here.

And then invasive species are things that really take over and become a problem and we definitely wanna avoid those.

- Why native versus naturalized besides just they evolve there?

I mean, what were some of those big selling points or benefits that we get out of natives versus say a naturalized species?

- Right, I think that the native plants have a benefit because they look like our region, you know, they're a way to honor our natural heritage, they're generally gonna be more adapted to your location if you've selected the right plants.

An example is that, you know, when some of the extreme weather we've had in the last few years, extreme cold, extreme drought, that people have come to our plant sales saying, "I've decided to go native because my adaptive plants just didn't make it as well."

- [John] Right, and those curve balls, I think we're seeing more frequently.

- Yeah, yeah.

- To me, really make that case for those natives because, again, those are curve balls to those pieces as well, but they tend to do a bit better.

- I tried to select plants that were representing all different parts of the state.

Central Texas is easy because that's where so much is overlapping, but, you know, if you're a gardener in, you know, the Trans-Pecos or in the southern part of the state, there are plants in there that you can use.

- Right, and there are over, I know you have 225 plants, but, you know, there's what over 5,000 something vascular plants listed, and I know on the native plants of North America on the Wildflower Center's website, which is a wonderful resource, has, you know, I think it's something like 3,100 so there's a lot to choose from.

You also have some great guidance in the book about how to grow 'cause it's not necessarily as simple as, oh, I like this native plant that's native to Texas, let's plug it in there.

So I'd like to talk a little bit about how you decided and what you decided to incorporate in terms of that information 'cause there's everything from wildflower seeding meadows to site preparation invasive.

So how did you decide, why did you decide to organize it like that and sort of what are some of those big takeaways you think that's important for people?

- Yeah, I looked at what I would've wanted to read you know, as an early gardener, like, what would've been helpful for me?

And so, that's kind of how I decided what would be helpful for people.

And you know, I want people to be successful and some traditional horticultural practices don't really work for native plants as well, you know?

For example, bluebonnets really don't like a lot of compost in the soil.

And if you put 'em in well composted garden soils, you get a lot of growth and they'll probably get powdery mildew and maybe they'll bloom a little bit, but they're just not gonna be as hardy as they are if they're just growing in, you know, dirt.

- Right, right, right.

We're so used to that intensive model of, like, you have to enrich the soil so much, you've gotta throw this water down.

And those natives really allow us to sort of plug into what's there, right?

You don't have to improve upon because, as your point, they've evolved with those conditions.

If you're going to say start the yard, like, start to redesign your yard, what are some of the big steps you think you would boil those down to that you've included in the book?

- I definitely think doing site analysis and deciding like what do you have and what are your goals and trying to match the right plants to the right soil.

- What are some goals that you think are aspirational for people?

I mean, because it could be anything from just I want color or whatever.

What are some of the larger goals that you hear at the Wildflower Center that people express?

- Yeah.

- When they come to the native plant sales and other things like that.

- [Andrea] Definitely well adapted and low maintenance.

- [John] Okay.

- A big thing is obviously wildlife and pollinators in particular, that's always a great one.

And then the book is organized by different categories, so you know, ground covers, perennials, trees, shrubs, and that's intended to give people some ideas of the different vegetational layers that they can incorporate into their landscapes too.

- I'd like to discuss a few of these that you've got, we can't talk about all of them, but let's just sort of go through.

So ground covers, what are some of the ones that you've listed there?

Or what's one, let's zip it up, what's one that you feel that's really great?

- I love the horseherb, because it's a plant that grows in shady spots and it stays low, you can mow it, you can walk on it.

If you're looking for a ground cover where grass won't grow 'cause it's too shady, that's a great one, you probably already have it.

- Right, right, right, right.

- So encourage it.

- Right, and it's a bit of ephemeral though too though, it can sort of really rock out when the moisture's there and sometimes pull back a little bit as well.

- Yeah, it's a tough hardy plant, but yeah, it'll go dormant if it's dry and if you water it a little bit, it'll stay green pretty much year round.

- [John] Excellent well, what about perennials?

- One of my favorite would be the Texas greeneyes, and I like this plant because it's not super familiar for people, but it's a really easy to grow plant for most of the state.

- Okay.

- Into the Panhandle, and what's fun about it, it's a little yellow daisy flower and the center part is green, has the green eyes.

And it's the unopened disc flowers that are green, so it's just kind of a fun little plant and it blooms a lot.

- Wonderful, and that's readily available?

- It's somewhat available, but I would like to see more of it, it's an underused plant for sure.

- And that's a great point of that too, is that, you know, we need to drive that demand for these plants so we can get more of 'em because there are so many.

What about grasses?

- Yeah, one of our favorites would be the windmill grass.

That's just a cute little plant that gets maybe a foot to two feet depending on conditions.

But it just has a great texture to it.

- Yeah.

- It's kind of frothy, it would be really nice, you know, in front of some other plants that might want something to anchor it to the ground, and it flowers all, you know, off and on all year pretty much, maybe not the winter, but it looks great.

- Yeah, and it's pretty bulletproof as well, which I love about it, so it can be a little tricky, some people think it resembles Bermuda, I've heard, so sometimes you gotta, you know, sharpen your skills a little bit.

- [Andrea] It does not run like Bermudas.

(laughs) - [John] No, it does not, no, it doesn't.

- [Andrea] But the flowers are kind of similar, yeah.

- Right, right.

And what about cacti or succulents?

- The cacti are fun, you can put 'em in the ground and they're very drought resistant or you can put 'em in a container and kind of highlight them.

Sometimes gardens can be too lush and the surrounding plants might be a little bit bullies and you know, sort of swamp smaller plants, like the lace cactus.

So having 'em in a container is a great way to feature them and protect them from surrounding plants, they're also drought resistant, so they can do just fine in a pot with very little care.

- Absolutely.

And then what about small trees?

- One of my favorites is the blanco crabapple, and that one's also a little bit hard to find, but is a really fun plant.

Big pink flowers on it in the spring and it has a lot of features to it, it has nice fall color too, kind of purples and some oranges and reds, so it's kind of colorful and it makes a nice understory tree.

The fruits are kind of, you know, good to eat if you process them.

- Jams or jellies, just like everything in Texas, yeah.

- And strangely, when the fruit are dropped on the ground, they smell really good as they start to ferment, they have a really sweet fragrance to them.

- Interesting.

Well, Andrea, thank you so much for so much information in here, it's a really great resource, I think that the viewers are really gonna love to dig into this one, so thank you so much for coming.

Now let's check in with Daphne Richards.

(bright music) - Last fall, Gail Smith sent a photo of her gorgeous strip of native black dalea perennials.

They were well established and absolutely flourished covered with bees all summer long.

But by the end of the flowering season, they'd gotten a bit tall and straggly, so she asked about cutting them back.

When's the best time?

We checked with Andrea DeLong-Amaya, horticulturist at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, who recommends shearing black dalea plants back to a few inches from the ground in late winter each year.

Perennials, which freeze to the ground in most years, will always perform better the following spring, producing more lush, compact growth and more flowers every spring if sheared back hard, just prior to the emergence of new growth.

When the days start getting longer and the nights begin to stay warmer, plants respond by flushing out new leaves and flower buds.

If we have a winter that's on the warm side, some new growth may emerge from last season's old twigs, but if so, it will continue to look straggly, so don't be afraid to cut them way back.

Black daleas are perfect for dry gardens, and aside from winter shaping, require little maintenance.

They grow to about three feet tall and attract bees and butterflies.

They're also a host plant for the dogface butterfly, but deer will browse them too.

Gail's soil is mostly amended clay, but the bed of black dalea sits on top of a French drain, surrounded by native soil and gravel.

And black dalea is one of the plants that's listed as acceptable to plant in the first 30 feet closest to the house, known as the defensible zone in firewise landscaping.

Fire resistance is a measure of how readily the plant will catch fire.

Generally, plants that have a high moisture content and stems that are watery and lack resins, oils, and other volatile substances are more resistant to fire.

Our late spring and summer perennials will be blooming soon, if not already.

In Cedar Park, Tracy Martin spotted this eastern tiger Swallowtail sipping nectar on this patch of Lantana.

As our perennials and shrubs start putting on new growth, add a bit of compost to build the soil and feed the soil microbiome.

If you want to use fertilizer, this is a great time to do so, but be judicious.

Most native plants need very little supplemental nutrition to perform well.

We'd love to hear from you, click on CentralTexasGardener.org to send us your questions, pictures, and videos.

- Next, garden consultant Colleen Dieter, shows how to pick a plant when you head to the nursery.

(bright music) - Hi, gardening friends, I'm Colleen Dieter with ATXgardens.com.

Today I'm gonna show you how to choose healthy plants at the nursery.

I'm gonna start with these lavenders.

And you can see how some of the leaves on the bottom look sort of yellow, they're a little droopy, a little wilty.

That's a sign that this plant has been over watered, and that's really common with lavender.

Compared to this plant here that looks silver all the way through, there's no droopy leaves, it looks really good.

This one too, with the droopy leaves, has a lot of roots coming out of the bottom of the pot, and that shows that it's been in the pot for way too long.

This one with the droopy leaves and the roots coming out of the bottom is more likely to have problems after you plant it, so look for that when you're shopping for lavender and other Mediterranean type herbs.

Up next are the tomatoes.

Now taller is not always better, okay?

So both of these tomatoes have the same number of leaves, they've got about seven or eight leaves each, but this one is taller and more lanky because it's been stretching for the sun, and a shorter and stockier plant tends to be more healthy and it's also easier to get it home without breaking it up.

Next, I've got this dill plant that looks really sad.

So it should be green all the way through, and it's been over watered or exposed to cold.

Now this is one that you might be able to rehab if it's on sale, if it's in the discount section, you know?

But what's important to understand is that it's a cool season plant.

So if it's toward the end of the cool season, then it's getting to be too late to plant it anyway.

Up next is this red buckeye, and these are really great trees but they're really hard to find at the nursery.

They're hard to find at the nursery because most of the year, they lose their leaves and that's okay.

Just look for this healthy bud at the end of the stem, when they bloom in the spring, they're really, really beautiful.

Last, I have this arugula, again, taller is not always better.

So arugula is a cool season plant and it tastes good when it's short, and toward the end of the season, it will start to bolt, which means it goes into reproductive mode, which means instead of making delicious leaves, it sends up a tall stalk like this with flowers on it, and then the plant doesn't taste as good.

So with arugula, again, taller is not always better.

And now I'm gonna give you some tips for choosing a shade tree at the nursery.

So the number one thing to look for when you're picking out a shade tree, like an oak or a pecan, is to dig around the root flare at the base of the trunk to make sure there aren't any girdling roots, that's roots that are circling the trunk or crossing over the trunk because that will kill the tree in the long run.

You also can ask the nursery staff to remove the tape that holds the trunk of the tree onto the stake.

That way you'll be able to tell if the tree can stand up on its own or not, or if it's gonna flop over.

For Backyard Basics, I'm Colleen Dieter.

- Go beyond the show with us.

Follow our producer, Linda, on Instagram where she shares even more CTG content, including glimpses in her own gardening projects.

Be sure to check out CentralTexasGardener.org where you can get tips, show highlights, and sign up for our newsletter.

Until next time, adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

(bright music) - [Announcer] "Central Texas Gardener" is made possible by generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden, Diane Land and Steve Adler, and by the Travis County Master Gardeners Association.