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.

Help us grow by giving to the Plant Database Fund or by becoming a member

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.

Search Smarty Plants

See a list of all Smarty Plants questions

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!

Need help with plant identification, visit the plant identification page.

rate this answer

Not Yet Rated

Thursday - May 27, 2010

From: Comanche, OK
Region: Southwest
Topic: Wildflowers
Title: Wildflowers for a large backyard in Oklahoma
Answered by: Nan Hampton

QUESTION:

I have a large back yard in full sun. What native flowers should I plant here?

ANSWER:

Please take a look at our Oklahoma Recommended page to find a list of commercially available plants native to Oklahoma that are suitable for landscaping. You can use the NARROW YOUR SEARCH option from the side bar to choose 'Herb' from GENERAL APPEARANCE and 'Sun...' from LIGHT REQUIREMENT to find nearly fifty wildflowers that you could use. If you were interested in having only perennials, you could also choose that from LIFESPAN. You could also make choices in the SOIL MOISTURE, BLOOM COLOR and BLOOM TIME categories if you like. Here are a few wildflowers from tht list that would make a nice choice, but there are many other very nice choices.

Gaillardia pulchella (firewheel)

Glandularia bipinnatifida var. bipinnatifida (Dakota mock vervain)

Liatris elegans (pinkscale blazing star)

Lobelia cardinalis (cardinalflower)

Lupinus texensis (Texas bluebonnet)

Oenothera speciosa (pinkladies)

Rudbeckia hirta (blackeyed Susan)

Thelesperma filifolium (stiff greenthread)

If you wanted to make your backyard into a sort of meadow, you might like to read our How to Article, Meadow Gardening. In this article you will see that we recommend planting native grasses with the wildflowers. Here are a few recommended ones:

Bouteloua curtipendula (sideoats grama)

Bouteloua gracilis (blue grama)

Elymus canadensis (Canada wildrye)

Schizachyrium scoparium (little bluestem)

Here are photos from our Image Gallery: