Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Before you add plants to your landscape, ask yourself these questions:

Is it drought tolerant? Is it saline-tolerant? Is it alkaline-tolerant? Does it propagate easily? What’s it beneficial to? Horses, wild game or other types of livestock, is it pollinated by honeybees? Fire-tolerant?

Kathy Boydston is the Coordinator for the Wildlife Habitat Assessment Program at Texas Parks and Wildlife, which is home to a comprehensive online Texas Plant Information Database.

Most of them are natives; some of them are what we call naturalized plants. There is a list of 150 attributes for each plant that is in that database.

Users of the database, found on the Parks and Wildlife website can determine what plants will be the most beneficial to wildlife, which are best for a certain soil and what plants grow better in the heat of the Texas sun…

Trying to get people to plant more wildlife-friendly plants, rather than a lot of exotic species. We’re trying to get people to find other alternatives for lets say, grass species in their lawn, or we’re trying to encourage people to xeriscape more, use more native plants that use less water.

Fall is an ideal time to plant perennial plants, woody shrubs and trees.

To learn more about the Texas Plant Information Database, log on to our website, at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show for today. For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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