Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

Thank you, we love our name, too. We also love all the people that come looking for plant help. However, we may not be able to give you much of a list of tropicals and sub-tropicals. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is dedicated to the growth, propagation and protection of plants native not only to North America but to the area in which they are being grown. Very few tropicals or sub-tropicals can be considered native, even to southeast Texas. We can certainly help you build a plant list of natives that are native to The Woodlands area, and we also have a list of deer-resistant plants.

We'll start with the Deer-Resistant Plant List first. At the right-hand sidebar on this page you can select on Texas, then on the General Appearance the kind of plant you want, such as shrub or herb (herbaceous blooming plant), as well as Light Requirements, Soil Moisture and so forth. When you Narrow Your Search you will get a list of plants native to Texas that have at least some of the attributes deer don't like. You will have to read each plant page to learn if that plant can do well in southeast Texas.

On to plants for your area. Go to Recommended Species, click on East Texas on the map. This will give you a list of plants that are native to your area and should do well there. Just for a trial run, we are going to search that list (using the sidebar on the right side of the page) for "herbs" (herbaceous blooming plants) under General Appearance. When you make your own list, you can also indicate Light Requirements, Soil Moisture, as well as "shrub" or "tree" or the other forms of plants. We picked out some plants that look pretty exotic to us, whether that will count as tropical or sub-tropical, we don't know.

Herbaceous blooming plants for The Woodlands TX:

Asclepias tuberosa (Butterflyweed)

Echinacea purpurea (Eastern purple coneflower)

Hibiscus coccineus (Scarlet rose-mallow)

Hymenocallis liriosme (Spider lily)

Ipomopsis rubra (Standing cypress)

Lobelia cardinalis (Cardinal flower)

Monarda punctata (Spotted beebalm)

Bignonia capreolata (Crossvine)

From our Native Plant Image Gallery:

Asclepias tuberosa

Echinacea purpurea

Hibiscus coccineus

Hymenocallis liriosme

Ipomopsis rubra

Lobelia cardinalis

2656

Monarda punctata

Bignonia capreolata