Gardening 101: Planting colorful perennials
FORT WORTH (CBSNewsTexas.com) — One of my favorite places to visit is the Trial Garden at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. A stroll anytime during the growing season can educate you about what grows here in North Texas.
For every plant in the garden, you can take a picture and go find it at a local nursery, which can be difficult for some varieties. A surefire way to find the plant you found in the Trial Garden is to go to the bi-annual plant sale the FWBG puts on.
If you are a member there, you can shop on the Thursday before it opens to the public and get the first picks. I paid a visit to the garden with Steve Huddleston of FWBG. He pointed out three flowering plants that put on a show in April (and, for some, beyond).
The Four-nerve daisy will flower mostly through March to June. If you keep it feed and watered, it could bloom most of the year. This is native and Texas tough; you find it in the wild growing in rocky hillsides. It gets just over a foot tall.
"Bath's pink" dianthus flowers in April with a brilliant display. The rest of the year, enjoy the silver-gray mat of foliage that will serve as a great foreground to some summer flowering plants.
Autumn sage (Salvia greggii) is a North Texas garden must. Once established, these plants are difficult to kill. The best part is that they provide local pollinators some steady food through just about the entire spring, summer and fall. They also come in a wide range of colors. These plants get about two feet tall and grow well in a crowded community.
Fill your garden with native flowering perennials and you'll significantly lower your watering bill while feeding local pollinators. You'll also only have to buy these plants once - unless you have a neighbor that grows them and they need dividing.
Then you get them for free!
