Leslie's Wildscape Wildflower Lawn Project

Welcome to the Wildflowers!

Hey Neighbors (and other visitors),

I hope you're enjoying my wildscape! If you're passing by my wildflower lawn and wondering what's growing here, I've started a blog diary of the different species that may be blooming (depending on the season) for you to identify. Things change quickly in a wildflower planting, so there's usually always something new to look at. There are also times when there may NOT be much to look at. This is Texas, and the weather can be brutal and unpredictable. It can also take a few years for some species to germinate or become established. I also have a quite a bit of shade on the side yard for the first half of the day, which makes for challenging light conditions for many plant species.

Over time I'll add more plants and photos as they bloom, as well as add in growing information about each species.

In case you didn't know, this side of my property is actually city easement (there may be a lot more of what you THINK is your property when you live on a corner that may not actually belong to you; if you look at your survey you'll find that corner easements can be pretty large.) So if you've always wondered why my fence is built where it is, and why there is such a large space I've never "landscaped" it's because anything you plant on a city easement becomes city property, and they need access to those easements for construction work, be it water/gas/electric lines, street repair, sewage, etc. And let me tell you, there has been a lot of street construction on my corner over the years. With my luck, if I spent thousands of dollars to landscape this large easement (about 2000 sq ft), the city construction trucks would show up the next day to rip up water pipes. NOPE, not doing it! BUT, as the adjacent property owner it is my cost and responsibility to do whatever maintenance is required for the easement, including maintaining whatever trees and plants I plant there, and that means pruning, mowing and watering, etc.

SO, for both my benefit and YOURS, I decided trying to water the ugly Bermuda grass I inherited with the lot was absolutely not worth it, so a wildflower lawn it shall become!

* Now, you may ask, "why didn't you just rip up all that grass and put down gravel or stone?" Well, because I live on a pretty steep slope and strong grade at the very top of the neighborhood, so guess what? All those downpours we get send all the water down the street straight to my house and then it all washes down up against my house and across my property down the hill. SOIL EROSION big time. Run off and erosion is not only bad for the environment, it's bad for my property and home foundation. So I have to keep something - anything - growing at all times on my property. AND the last thing we need in Dallas is more concrete or gravel. We need more PLANTS, specifically to to mitigate the urban heat island effect, reduce temperatures (and the desertification process), reduce runoff, control erosion, improve air quality etc. Pick plants over gravel any day. Now, do I have some gravel on my front easement? Yes. Why? Because I got sick of neighbors calling city code on me when my plants weren't even taller than the required limit. I mean, if my salvia grows 2-inches into the sidewalk I've gotten notices. SO I ripped them all out (not cool but what are you going to do).

The Wildscape Wildflower Lawn Project

Establishing wildflower lawns or pocket prairies in urban landscapes isn't a quick overnight process. Sometimes it can take a while to get the area into a state where it can better transition, due to existing plant competition or soils issues. So, this might explain why it seems like I've been at it a while. To prep the area, which was full of a mix of Bermuda and St. Augustine turf grasses, plus plenty of other invasive "weeds", I basically spent a couple of years just not watering it, coupled with regular scalping, specifically to weaken and kill off the turf. I also hit everything with multiple sprays of vinegar (of course we know none of that is going to eradicate Bermuda grass, but the goal at this point is that everything just shades it out so it can't thrive.)

After I was left with mostly bare dirt, I used a rolling spike aerator on the soil to prep it for seeds. Then, in mid-August through September I spread out seeds of a number of different species and used a water-filled roller to press them into the soil (through mid-October is a good time to put down wildflower seed in N. Texas). Now, remember, I live on a steep slope, and we get torrential downpours of rain here in Dallas. So I no doubt lost some seed to runoff early on. You just have to factor these issues in.

Also, we had VERY warm weather all the way through January ('24-25) so many of the species germinated and were almost in blooming stage in December, when they shouldn't have been...and then we got smacked in the face with a sudden 13F freeze in mid-February. Because the plants were not acclimated to that degree of cold, many perished, including LOTS of California poppies and a number of other species. Bummer! SO, I'll have to start over with some of those. You have to go with the flow and just see what does or doesn't work.

Sweet Alyssum

Johnny Jump Ups

Baby Blue Eyes

Chinese Forget Me Nots

Four 'O Clocks

Cherianthus

Bachelor's Buttons

Blue Flax

Baby's Breath

Five Spot

Texas Bluebonnet

Silene

Love in a Mist

Blanket Flower

Toadflax

Tickseed

Sweet William