Native Plants

Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Did you know you can access the Native Plant Information Network with your web-enabled smartphone?

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

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Please forgive us, but Mr. Smarty Plants has been overwhelmed by a flood of mail and must take a break for awhile to catch up. We hope to be accepting new questions again soon. Thank you!

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Friday - February 05, 2016

From: Round Rock, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Butterfly Gardens
Title: Making a perennial cutting garden friendly to butterflies.
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

I would like to start a perennial cutting garden friendly to butterflies Where can I get a list of plants .

ANSWER:

Please visit our Special Collections page where you will find two links to lists of plants that are especially attractive to butterflies:

Butterflies and Moths of North America is a list of larval and nectar plants for butterflies and moths in North America
Ann and O. J. Weber Butterfly Garden is a list of butterfly plants that have been part of the Wildflower Center's butterfly garden.
National Butterfly Center has a list of butterfly plants for South Texas.

On both lists you can use the NARROW YOUR SEARCH option in the sidebar to pick plants with your criteria. Pick "Texas" from the SELECT STATE OR PROVINCE slot and "Perennial" from the LIFESPAN slot. You can also narrow the results by using other criteria such as GENERAL APPEARANCE, LIGHT REQUIREMENT, BLOOM TIME, etc.

I chose several perennial shrubs that are native to Texas and will bloom in April:

and several herbaceous perennials native to Texas that bloom in September:

There are many more for you to choose from on the three lists.