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

Featured Photos showcases Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, Pennsylvania, on the Main Line in Philadelphia, photographed this July. Chanticleer describes itself as a pleasure garden, but it's much more than that. The horticulturists and designers at Chanticleer combine artistry with a superior knowledge of plants in arranging compositions throughout the many gardens, borders and containers, often favoring foliage over flowers. Each area is designed as a set piece. The photos here represent only a fraction of worthy views in one moment of time. Chanticleer is one of the top gardens in the United States.
Click on arrows at the right and left of photos to advance, and on the i for description.

Featured Plants

Check out my top plants for the season

Verbascum thapsus

Verbascums make a presence in the wildflower or cottage garden and mixed border, whether it be this common mullein, or another species with showier flowers. Verbascums can be either biennial or perennial, but will make enough seeds you’ll never be without. Some are drought tolerant and thrive in poor, but well drained soil, others may need medium water use and a richer soil.

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Teucrium aroanium

Exciting drought tolerant groundcover! This gray-green leaved, evergreen groundcover adds quite a sparkle to any xeristrip or low water-use bed, border and rock garden. For prolonged summer blooms, water monthly during the growing season. Needs full exposure to sun and little water. Like's it's soil lean.

Delightfully fragrant with a sweet honeysuckle scent. A truly beautiful addition to any xeric bed or border.

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Salvia farinacea

Victoria blue salvia is usually not cold hardy in the Texas Panhandle, but every once in awhile, one will winter over. But that shouldn't stop you from replanting this lovely, summer long blooming native to regions further south, classified by some to be one of the top ten flowers for Texas gardens. Upright and dense flower stalks in blue, white (Alba) and deep blue or violet. Salvia farinacea continues to be hybridized to create new introductions. Often referred to as mealycup sage, its stately appearance deserves the nobler moniker, Victoria Blue.

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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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Campis radicans

People either love trumpet creeper or hate it. The first three years, I couldn't wait for it to mature, filling with red-orange trumpet shaped flowers. It seems I've spent the next 20 years trying to kill it. Trumpet vine will die, but only for those who want it to live. If a gardener gives it the death wish, it will be sure to flourish. Native to most of the eastern half of the U.S., it is low water-use, thrives in heat. Must be in a sunny location to bloom profusely. Considered to be invasive, especially when over watered. Not particular about its soil.

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Recent Garden Notes

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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Foliage in the Landscape

02/05/2018 - 12:58

After one has been gardening for a few years, or perhaps, a number of years, green becomes beautiful. Green becomes beautiful at the moment when in thinking about a plant, the leaves become the main draw instead of some expectation of flowers. I briefly explore the world of leaves and the various foliage colors that give gardens clues to their use in the landscape.

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Neal Hinders Awarded Native Plant Society Award for Horticultural Achievement

11/09/2017 - 11:25

Inspiring the Texas Panhandle to Go Native for over 20 years, this November 4th, Neal Hinders, gardening hero, was awarded the Lynn R. Lowrey Memorial Award by the Native Plant Society of Texas in Huntsville, Texas at their annual symposium. Neal Hinder is in many ways like Lynn R. Lowrey himself, for whom this award was established. Hinders' nursery is Canyon's Edge Plants and is located just off the square in Canyon, Texas at 1401 5th Avenue.

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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: Gardening During the Age of Climate Change, an Earth Day GardenNotes

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