By Bill Ward
Published in The Boerne Star in August 2006
Two of our front-yard shrubs conspicuously have bloomed throughout the hot drought, even as most other flowers withered. These are Mexican oregano (Foliomintha longiflora) and flame acanthus (Anisacanthus quadrifidus var. wrightii). And if these plants are flowering in our front yard, it means they are not browsed by whitetail deer.
Our dry and deer-infested yard is a good testimony to the hardiness of flame acanthus, which is the Operation NICE! (Natives Instead of the Common Exotics!) selection for August-September. Flame acanthus grows and blooms in full sun to dappled shade and seems to thrive in soils that are rarely irrigated and certainly never fertilized. It’s a really NICE! plant.
Flame acanthus is a small bush that gets up to about three or four feet high and thickens with time. The multi-branching limbs are lined with numerous lanced-shaped leaves two or three inches long. During the summer and into the fall, flame acanthus blooms profusely. Its orange-red to yellow-orange trumpet-shaped flowers are favorites of hummingbirds and butterflies.
A few years ago, a good friend of mine gave us a start of flame acanthus he dug up at an old house place on his ranch in Hayes County. I think he gave us two plants. Now we probably have 30 to 40 plants scattered around the front and back yards. A few of these were divided from the original plants, but most came up on their own. It’s always interesting to see where a flame acanthus will sprout. Most have chosen tolerable spots to grow, but occasionally I have to redistribute the new plants.
The caution I am trying to convey here is that flame acanthus will spread on its own. If you require a tidy garden, keep a watchful eye for new flame acanthus the year after you introduce this Texas native to your garden.
In the wild, flame acanthus grows from northeastern Mexico into the edge of the Hill Country in Uvalde County. Some authors claim it is native to the Edwards Plateau, and supposedly it once was collected from a natural stand in northern Bexar County.
The Boerne Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas provides free planting and care instructions for flame acanthus at nurseries participating in Operation NICE! (Hill Country African Violets and Nursery, Barkley’s Nursery Center, and Maldonado Landscape and Nursery).
What’s Blooming in late July
In the interest of showing the continuously changing color that native-plant gardens provide, I promised to report once a month which Texas native and native-compatible plants are blooming in the part of our backyard that is fenced off from deer. Blooms are much reduced from last month.
Red/orange: Salvia darcyi (Mexican), flame acanthus, remnants of standing cypress and Mexican hat, and big red sage.
Yellow: common sunflower, bush sunflower, greeneyes, zexmenia, and esperanza.
Purple: common wild petunia, Mexican oregano, and eryngo.
Pink: few purple coneflowers and rose pavonia
Blue: mealy sage, giant blue sage, and Lindheimer’s morning glory.
White/cream: blackfoot daisy, water lily, snow-on-the-mountain, Texas milkweed, rain lily, and flameleaf sumac.
