High Plains Gardening

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Welcome to High Plains Gardening, the free, non-commercial, gardening information website for the Texas High Plains region and surrounding area!

The purpose of this website is to promote a culture of gardening within the Texas High Plains Region by offering information on an easy and successful way to garden. My hope is that many more people will enjoy gardening, and gardening success, in the Texas Panhandle.

My Vision — Gateway to Southwest Gardens

I have several goals, or visions, for the Texas High Plains region. I envision:

The Texas High Plains region will be known as “Gateway to Southwest Gardens”;
Area nurseries will stock and sell a huge selection of low-water use plants suitable for our area;
Area nurseries will promote and sell a wide range of organic gardening supplies; and
TV gardening programs that focus on and highlight area gardens, as well as being informational about southwest gardening, will be broadcast locally.

Establishing and creating this website is just one of the activities I do to draw closer to my vision for our area. I believe all four of my goals are attainable. Read through the rest of the website and give it a try. HighPlainsGardening.com is filled with information that will help you create gardens that are:

Featured Photography

Views of Palo Duro Canyon during the first three weeks on June, before the first day of summer. The progression of wildflowers through the weeks of spring is thrilling. Bees and butterflies where out in abundance and could be seen on nearly all the flowers. Rains bring many dormant plants to life, including one unusual plant (for me, anyway), a parasitic annual, a broomrape, that produces no chlorophyll, shown near the end of the photo collection. There were so many wildflowers, I've left many out!

Silver Nightshade, Solanum elaeagnifolium

Plains Larkspur, Delphinium carolinianum

Plains Yellow Daisy, Tetraneuris scaposa

Purple Prairie Clover, Dalea purpurea v. purpurea

Antelope Horn Milkweed, Asclepias asperula

Tansy aster, Machaeranthera tanacetifolia

Gray-checkered Whiptail eating an insect

Common buckeye, Junonia coenia on Horsemint

Painted Lady, Vanessa cardui, on American Basketflower

American Basketflower and other pollinators

Hackberry Emperor, Asterocampa celtis, on spotted beebalm

Purple coneflower, Echinacea angustifolia

Field of coneflowers (and other wildflowers)

Broomrape species, most likely Orobanche ludoviciana var multiflora

Featured Plants

Check out my top plants for the season

Salvia greggii 'Furman's Red'

If I had to pick my favorite plant, this is it. Long blooming and drought tolerant with only minimal maintenance of late winter cutting back, and maybe a bloom pick-me-up deadheading at mid summer. It will also re seed some so you’ll have more of them the next year. It’s fragrance is light and pleasantly of sage. Salvia greggiis are native to Texas in the Kerrville area. It is my favorite, but not the absolutely perfect plant. The stems are quite brittle and very easily break or snap off, even when you’re carefully weeding around it.

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Ratibida columnifera

You can't have just one. As soon as you plant one, you'll have a drift, then a sweep, then a field if you have the space. But I still don't consider the prairie coneflower to be invasive, merely pleasant. Next to the Indian Blanket, the Mexican Hat shouts Southwest prairies. And its a tough hombre. If your stand becomes too dense or too much, just weed some out. They're adaptable to most native soils and will thrive on available or once a month supplementation. Coneflowers bloom yellow, reddish or brown late spring into fall and make an attractive display when mixed.

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Monarda didyma

An American native requiring medium to high water, it is a prolific grower, an old fashion pass-along plant. Perfect for a mixed border or at the edge of the vegetable garden to attract bees. The variety shown is most likely 'Violet Queen', although I'm unsure. However, it is not the common scarlet bee balm or red bergamot, that also grows well here. Blooms throught the summer and is an attractive addition.

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Mirabilia multiflora

Rounded mounds of green leaves on multi-forked stems put forth multitudes of fragrant purple/magenta flowers from summer into autumn. Flowers open in late afternoon (perhaps around four o'clock) and close in early morning. Cold hardy and heat and drought tolerant, after freezing in the fall, the top growth breaks away. Desert four o'clock emerges in the spring from a large root. Will not transplant well once established. Southwest native perennial is usually found in somewhat shaded areas.

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Ipomea leptophylla

Bush morning glory is a non-vining herbaceous perennial with a deep taproot, allowing it to be drought tolerant, but difficult to transplant. Arching branches with narrow upright green leaves emerge from the taproot. Summer blooming with 3 inch pink to purple funnel shaped flowers that open in the morning and close in the afternoon. Bush morning glory typically inhabits sandy and sandy loan plains, meadows, prairies and roadsides.

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Echinacea angustifolia

Echinacea angustifolia is the herbal echinacea. Native throughout most of the Midwest, and the Texas Panhandle. Very drought tolerant. It can be seen growing along roadsides and in nature generally. A good cut flower. The common name Black Samson refers to its roots. Not as showy as E. purpurea and newer introductions.

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Recent Garden Notes

Amarillo -- Degrees of Change: How Much Climate Change has Warmed Amarillo's Weather

02/06/2019 - 15:10

Over the past two decades, Amarillo’s weather has changed noticeably. I thought the weather in 2018 to be particularly hot, but not quite as severe as the terrible years of 2011 and 2012. I didn’t enjoy the heat of these summers. Three really hot, dry, miserable summers within a decade. Will this be our future? Should I consider moving to a milder, wetter climate? How hot will it get in Amarillo, as global warming continues to warm? This article seeks to answer Amarillo’s degree of change.

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A Visit to Longwood Gardens

09/01/2018 - 16:49

Longwood Gardens includes over 1075 acres of gardens, paths through forests, woodlands and meadow, around lakes and grand plazas, fountains and a through a series of glass houses that make up the four and a half acre conservatory complex. Longwood Gardens is composed of 27 separate outdoor garden areas, 20 gardens inside the conservatory complex and four designated fountain gardens. Longwood can boast more fountains than at any other place in America. It’s specialties are many, the most evident being the fountains, elegant European flair, the extensive conservatory complex, dramatic and varied horticultural displays in an environment that feels comfortably democratic in tone through the five Longwood Gardens seasons.

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Gardening During the Age of Climate Change

04/21/2018 - 18:21

The Texas Panhandle is known for its rapidly changing weather, where temperatures race up and down a thermometer on a somewhat regular basis. Now, global warming is bringing the additional challenge of not only changing weather, but a changing climate. Hail and long-term drought damage plants. Sudden and fierce rainstorms pound weakened plants whose root systems fail to hold the soil in place. Additionally, a warming planet doesn’t preclude early devastating autumnal freezes. Yes, we in the Texas Panhandle have struggled with these conditions in the past. They are not going away, and most likely will get worse. Gardening is not for the faint of heart. Learn how to adapt and mitigate the gardening challenges climate change presents.

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High Plains Gardening

High Plains Gardening

High Plains Gardening

High Plains Gardening

High Plains Gardening

My Vision — Gateway to Southwest Gardens

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New Garden Notes: Amarillo -- Degrees of Change: How Much Climate Change has Warmed Amarillo's Weather

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