PLANTS FOR POLLINATORS: Spring is a fine time to grow 
plants for pollinators…details on Passport to Texas. 

This is Passport to Texas

It’s springtime, and a perfect time for planting a garden 
for pollinators like bees, butterflies and birds.

Even a few native flowering plants will draw a multitude 
of winged wildlife to your yard. Monarchs and other 
butterflies, bees, and even hummingbirds swarmed the 
few flowering plants I installed in my side yard last year. 

What a thrill it was to come up the driveway each evening 
after work to a battalion of butterflies flitting through my 
garden.

This month I’m going install plants that will bloom from 
spring to fall, and thrive in the dry clay soil and sunny 
location I have in mind. These plants include: the Pasque 
flower, which is a perennial that gets about a foot tall, 
forms clumps, and blooms in April. 

The Pale purple coneflower, which is a 2 to 3 foot tall 
perennial, and one of the earliest-blooming coneflower 
species. 

Purple prairie clover is a care-free perennial I’m 
considering. A midsummer-bloomer, it attracts insects 
like mad. And it’s one to 2 feet tall and just as wide. 

A species of Liatris, Tall Blazing Star, is a late-summer to 
early-fall bloomer that grows 1 foot wide and 3 to 4 feet 
tall. And, finally, the aromatic aster, a small shrub that 
blooms in September and October, will provide fuel for a 
few late season pollinators just passing through. 

Pollinator gardens are fun and rewarding. Plant one. 

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia 
Nasti


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