Native Plants

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Saturday - October 29, 2011

From: Leander, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Lists, Herbs/Forbs
Title: Central Texas flowers suitable for cutting from Leander TX
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Please suggest Central TX native flowers that would be especially suitable for a "cutting garden" for interior arrangements.

ANSWER:

Lucky you (and lucky Mr. Smarty Plants!). Two volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center who regularly make flower arrangements from the Center gardens for use in the buildings have compiled a list of plants suitable for cutting. Since we are in Central Texas, too, you can probably count on all of these working where you are - Williamson and Travis Counties. Following the link will give you a choice of 201 plants; however, many of them are trees and/or bushes from which flowers or stems can be cut. You can use the sidebar on the right-hand side of the page to indicate "herbs" (herbaceous blooming plants) under Habit. This will give you 102 plants. If you like to have arrangements year-round, you will have to do what the flower ladies at the Center do, use grasses, branches, seed pods and seasonally blooming flowers. From that list of flowering plants, here are some we have particularly noticed being used at the Wildflower Center:

Amblyolepis setigera (Huisache daisy)

Centaurea americana (American basket-flower)

Echinacea purpurea (Eastern purple coneflower)

Helianthus maximiliani (Maximilian sunflower)

Salvia farinacea (Mealy blue sage)

Eryngium leavenworthii (Leavenworth's eryngo)