News and announcements from our committee chairs, board members, and chapter leaders. Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date. For chapter news, visit Chapters. If you are looking for a calendar of events, see our Events Calendar.
100 More Bigtooth Maples Line the Streets of Boerne
Author: Bill Ward We did it again! For the fourth year, the Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas successfully gave away about 100 bigtooth maples to homeowners, businesses, schools, and churches. Some day, all those maples will make Boerne the Bigtooth Maple Town, where residents and visitors
The native-plant garden and nursery in Medina, Texas
The newest participant in the Boerne Chapter’s Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of Common Exotics!) is Medina Garden Nursery. It’s on Highway 16, just at the southeastern entrance to the little town of Medina and right across the road from Baxter Adams’ tree nursery, the supplier for of our annual Bigtooth
Native plant garden & nursery in Medina
**ARCHIVED POST ** Hundreds of potted plants for sale are lined up on the ground among the native trees, shrubs, and flowers planted in the big “front yard” of Ernesto Cariño’s rock house. “Medina Garden Nursery” is the perfect name for this business, because it is both a nursery and
The ligustrum woods of Boerne
**ARCHIVED POST ** One day the land just back of the soon-to-be-built Boerne Public Library will be a pleasant wooded slope with pathways winding through native trees and shrubs down to shady banks of an intermittent creek. It will be a place to take a stroll, read a book, watch
Brush – it’s a matter of perspective
**ARCHIVED POST ** Brush … you know … that worthless mix of small trees, shrubs, and vines that needs to be cleaned off the land. Or is that really a sensible definition of “brush”?
The ligustrum woods of Boerne — landscape at its worst
One day the land just back of the soon-to-be-built Boerne Public Library will be a pleasant wooded slope with pathways winding through native trees and shrubs down to shady banks of an intermittent creek. It will be a place to take a stroll, read a book, watch birds and butterflies,
Prairies — more than grass on flat land
Author: Bill Ward A couple of years ago, Kathy and I were fortunate to be on a field trip that visited Burleson Prairie, a several-hundred-acre restoration project on the Blackland Prairie near Temple. Being fairly naïve about prairies, we were surprised by such a large variety of native plants, both
Nolina — the “bunch grass” that isn’t grass
Author: Bill Ward Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of Common Exotics!) selection for November is nolina or sacahuista, the “bunch grass” that isn’t a grass. Nolina texana commonly is called beargrass, bunch-grass, or basket grass, but it is a member of the agave family, making it a cousin of yucca, sotol,
Prairies — more than grass on flat land
The wide diversity of native plants on prairies supports a big variety of insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, and other animals. Prairies are teeming with life!
November-December 2009
NICE! Plant of the Month (Nolina texana) Family: Lily Family Other Common Names: Nolina, Sacahuista, Basket grass, Bunch-grass Type: Perennial, evergreen grasslike plant growing in a 3 ft. wide clump. Natural Habitat: On slopes and ravines in rocky soil from the Edwards Plateau, central Texas to the upper Rio Grande
On the trail of big red sage
Big red sage has a certain celebrity for being “rediscovered” after it was thought to be extinct. Wild populations of big red sage are found in very few sites in the Texas Hill Country and no where else on earth.
The ‘bunchgrass’ that is not a grass
**ARCHIVED POST ** Nolina texana commonly is called beargrass, bunch-grass, or basket grass, but it is a member of the agave family, making it a cousin of yucca, sotol, and century plant. Another name is sacahuista.
