Articles by Bill Ward

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on July 11, 2003 Now that I know a little bit about Hill Country vegetation, I find myself comparing our native plants

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on June 17, 2003 As Boerne continues its fast development, it is common to hear a resident lamenting about a favorite field

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on May 13, 2003 The Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT) is a diverse group of people of

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on April 29, 2003 In the last couple of weeks, I’ve visited a few limestone canyons in Kendall and adjacent counties, primarily

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on April 15, 2003 We were lucky to build our house in a subdivision where most of the native vegetation had not

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on April 1, 2003 When we were deciding on the Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!) plant for April, there

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on March 18, 2003 Perhaps the most intriguing genus of native plant I’ve learned about since joining the Native Plant Society of

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on March 11, 2003 President Eisenhower chose the name “Columbine” for his presidential plane when I was an undergraduate at “The University”

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on February 18, 2003 “Will the deer eat it?” That’s a question the local nursery people hear more and more as suburbs

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on February 4, 2003 Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of Common Exotics!) is recommending Texas redbud (Ceris canadensis var. texensis) for the February

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on January 21, 2003 An often-told tale in the Hill Country is the story of the rancher who removed cedar (Ashe juniper)

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on January 7, 2003 When my wife and I first hiked the trails in Friedrich Park several years ago, it was a

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on December 24, 2002 “Take Only Photos; Leave Only Footprints” is a familiar admonition at state and national parks and nature preserves.

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on December 10, 2002 My brother called me a hypocrite for publicly touting native plants while privately keeping a greenhouse full of

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on November 26, 2002 During her recent talk in Boerne, noted author and landscape designer Jill Nokes asked, “Why isn’t the Big-tooth

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on November 12, 2002 In some ways the wildflowers and other native vegetation we enjoy in the Boerne area today were predestined

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on October 29, 2002 “Deck the halls with boughs of possumhaw, tra la la.” Yes, possumhaw! This is the holly of the

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on October 15, 2002 When Nina Nye and I were members of the Fredericksburg Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on September 27, 2002 The October plant recommended by Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!) is the reliable and easy-to-grow

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on September 17, 2002 Ever since people have been able to travel to foreign lands, they have brought home the exotic plants

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on August 27, 2002 Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!) is recommending American beautyberry as plant of the month for

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on August 13, 2002 Lady Bird Johnson reportedly said that the movement to use native plants in landscaping and gardening was not

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on July 30, 2002 If you think of winter as a time when vegetation rests in a state of dormancy, then you

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on July 2, 2002 Hill Country summers are hard on most flowering plants, even native plants. By July many blooming wildflowers and

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on June 18, 2002 Most of us interested in native plants share the idea that it is important to nurture native-plant populations

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on June 4, 2002 Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!) plant for June is a native grass, Lindheimer muhly. For

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on May 21, 2002 About this time of year, some people I know start to worry that the mowing machines will be

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on May 7, 2002 Along the road I drive into Boerne, one of the very first plants to start blooming after those

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on April 16, 2002 This month, the Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas began Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of

By Bill Ward Published in The Boerne Star on April 2, 2002 Just after my wife and I retired to this area, an old friend asked us to attend a