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

Tuesday - March 15, 2011

From: The Woodlands, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Non-Natives, Herbs/Forbs
Title: Mercer Society of Harris County Plant Sale from The Woodlands, TX
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Love the Name! Anyway, the Mercer Society of Harris County will be having its annual plant sale late this month and as usual I will be attending. I'm trying to find some tropicals and sub-tropicals that will be colorful in The Woodlands area and should reasonably hold up. Also what are good flowers that are deer resistant?

ANSWER:

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: