By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star on August 8, 2003
August in the Hill Country is not a time when thoughts naturally turn to gardening and landscaping. The common preoccupations are with staying cool and getting ready for the start of school, not native plants.
Besides, August usually is at the height of our “second winter,” when grasses turn brown and most native flowers and shrubs go dormant from the heat (though this year may be the exception to the rule). Late summer is a good time to pursue your interest in native plants in an air-conditioned library. The Boerne Public Library is becoming a good resource for information on native plants, thanks to the Boerne Chapter of NPSOT.
Our chapter presents a book to the library in honor of each speaker at the monthly meetings. Commonly, the speakeะณ was the author of the book presented.
The first book donated to the Boerne Public Library was Wildflowers of the Texas Hill Country written by Marshall Enquist in 1987. This book with its beautiful photographs still is the bible for wildflower identification in the Hill Country.
When the first edition began to sell out, it was rumored that it would not be republished. Many people interested in Hill Country wildflowers reacted to that rumor by scrambling to seek out any remaining copies in out-of-the-way bookshops. Fortunately, the book was republished and is now widely available.
Other books on wildflowers the Boerne Chapter has donated are: 100 Texas Wildflowers by Dorothy Mattiza; Wildflowers of the Guadalupe Mountains and Sand Dune Country of Texas by Barton Warnock; Wildflowers of the Davis Mountains and Marathon Basin Texas by Barton Warnock; and A Treasury of Texas Flora – The Botanical Watercolors of Marie C. Wesby by Marie C. Wesby and Susan Sander.
For tree identification the library has Texas Trees: A Friendly Guide by Paul Cox and Patty Leslie (now Patty Leslie Pasztor). For native grass and forb identification there is Texas Range Plants by Stephan Hatch and Jennifer Plubar.
On general landscaping with native plants, you may refer to Gardening with Prairie Plants: How to Create Beautiful Native Landscapes by Sally Wasowski; Native Texas Plants – Landscaping Region by Region (2nd edition) by Sally Wasowski with Andy Wasowski; How to Grow Native Plants of Texas and the Southwest by Jill Nokes; Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife by Noreen Damude and Kelly Conrad Bender with contributions from Diane Foss; and Conservation Design for Subdivisions: A Practical Guide to Creating Open-Space Networks by Randall Arendt, et al..
Special-topic books in the library’s collection include Agaves, Yuccas, and Related Plants: A Gardener’s Guide by Mary and Gary Irish; Ferns and Fern Allies of the Trans-Pecos and Adjacent Areas by Sharon Yarborough and A. Michael Powell; The Butterfly Book: An Easy Guide to Butterfly Gardening, Identification, and Behavior by Donald and Lillian Stokes and Ernest Williams; and The Gardener’s Guide to Salvias by John Sutton.
In another column I’ll write about some other good books on Texas native plants, but I can predict with some certainty that future Boerne chapter gifts to the Boerne Public Library will include the new edition of Geyata Ajilvsgi’s Wildflowers of Texas.
Next year the library collection also will include our own Jan Wrede’s new and expanded edition of her book on native Hill Country woody plants (the out-of-print first edition was titled Texans Love Their Land). Wrede’s second edition is now in press. Stay tuned for an announcement of the book signing.
