Texas native gardening
Texas native plants, and how to grow them.
Pick natives for the spot you actually have, from Blackland clay to dry shade under live oaks, then keep them alive. Care guides checked against USDA, the Native Plant Society of Texas and extension sources.
The problem with your lawn
A yard that fights its climate is a yard that needs you every weekend.
Stop watering
Native plants evolved for your rainfall. Once rooted, most of the plants here want no supplemental water at all.
Feed the pollinators
The bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds already living near you recognize these plants. Non-natives mostly don't feed them.
Filter for real life
Sun or shade, deer or no deer, 2 ft or 8 ft, when it blooms. The filters a gardener actually uses.
The specimens
Texas native plant guides
Agarita
Berberis trifoliolata
A spiny blue-grey evergreen that bees swarm in late winter and birds nest inside for protection.
American Beautyberry
Callicarpa americana
Grown for its show-stopping clusters of electric-purple berries in fall — a feast for mockingbirds and dozens of other birds — on a graceful arching shrub..
Autumn Sage
Salvia greggii
The workhorse of the water-wise Texas garden: a small evergreen shrub that blooms nearly year-round and shrugs off heat, drought, and deer..
Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta
The classic golden prairie daisy — cheerful, tough, and endlessly reseeding.
Blackfoot Daisy
Melampodium leucanthum
A tidy mound smothered in honey-scented white daisies for most of the year.
Buffalograss
Bouteloua dactyloides
North America's true native turf grass — a fine, soft, blue-green sod that forms a low lawn on a fraction of the water Bermuda or St.
Start with a need
What's the hard spot in your yard?
Drought-Tolerant
Natives that thrive with little or no supplemental water once established — the core of a yard you never have to irrigate.
Lawn Replacement
Low, spreading natives — and true native turf grasses — that cover ground, take some foot traffic, and let you kill the thirsty lawn.
For Shade
Plants that flower and thrive under trees and on the north side of the house, where most natives struggle.
Pollinator Plants
Nectar and pollen sources that bring bees, butterflies, and other pollinators back to your yard.
For Hummingbirds
Tubular red and orange flowers that fuel hummingbirds through the season.
Deer-Resistant
Natives that deer tend to leave alone — aromatic, fuzzy, or tough-leaved.
Guides
How to actually do it
How to Replace Your Lawn With Native Plants in Texas
A step-by-step plan for killing your turf and replacing it with low-water Texas natives — from smothering the grass to choosing groundcovers, sedges, and native lawn grass.
The Best Native Plants for Clay Soil in Texas
Heavy black clay doesn't have to be a curse. These Texas natives evolved in it — trees, shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers that thrive in the dense, alkaline clay of the Blackland Prairie and beyond.
Native Alternatives to Common Non-Native Plants in Texas
Swap ligustrum, nandina, Bradford pear, Japanese honeysuckle, St. Augustine and other common landscape plants for Texas natives that do the same job with less water.
Kill your lawn — do the math first
See how much water, money, and mowing time you'd save by replacing turf with natives.
Open the lawn calculator →