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Buying a new home is an exciting experience, and it’s not over as soon as you get your keys. The fun part comes when it’s time to make your home yours and unique. One great wat to achieve that is by creating it’s own front yard landscaping. This will give you new home a personality of it’s own. Tropicana Homes and Patriot Mortgage are here to share with you some helpful tips on how to create a beautiful front yard for your new home with plants that can withstand our desert weather. Everyone can appreciate a well-kept garden. But keeping one up to shape and looking lively all year long can become quite the challenge, especially in an area like Texas. With high heat and drought-like conditions being the norm for many months out of the year, there are certain plants native to Texas which are better suited for a local garden than other plants.  Not only can Texas native plants spruce up your garden but they can help attract some interesting birds as well. Read on, and we’ll walk you through which plants and flowers will work best in your Texas garden!

Consider These Texas Native Plants

Plants native to Texas are typically drought-tolerant, flood-tolerant, or both. They are often able to withstand extreme heat, but this also means they probably will require full sun.

Black-Eyed Susan 

Photo by: darkmoon1968 / Pixabay.com

The Black-eyed Susan is a popular perennial coneflower native to Texas. This plant blooms throughout the summer and features vibrant golden flowers with a black center. These are great drought-resistant plants and make excellent cut flowers with large blooms up to 5 inches wide. 

Texas Lantana

Courtesy: AustinNativeLandscaping

The Texas Lantana is another great native perennial. Not only is it drought tolerant but it is salt tolerant as well. This Lantana’s orange to yellow flowers is well-known for attracting butterflies. It too blooms throughout the summer and needs full sun.

Prickly Pear Cactus

Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus/ BY WOS on September 8, 2014

The state plant of Texas, this attractive variety of cactus bears edible fruit and can be planted anytime. There are around 20 species of the Prickly Pear Cactus native to Texas. It often bears yellow flowers and also requires full sun.

Agarita

Austin Native Landscaping

The Agarita is a fun native Texas shrub that features yellow flowers and bears red berries. It typically blooms between February and April. This drought-resistant plant also has prickly leaves so be careful where you decide to plant it.  It is recommended that you plant Agarita in either early fall or early spring. Keep in mind that they typically grow between 3 and 6 feet high. This shrub does great in all regions of Texas. 

Gulf Coast Muhly

©2019 David Rolston Landscape Architects

Gulf Coast Muhly is a strong native perennial grass with airy seed heads during the fall which produces magnificent colors. It is best to plant these in early fall or early spring. It is also recommended that the Gulf Coast Muhly gets full sun although it will be okay with some shade. This grass can grow to be around 2 feet high with a spread of 2 to 3 feet. Gulf Coast Muhly needs to be cut back each year. Many gardeners tend to focus just on flowers but combining them with native grass is an excellent way to add variety to your garden. 

Texas Frogfruit

Texas Frogfruit is one of the Texas native plants which helps prevent soil erosion. This groundcover spreads quickly and is known as a good host for butterfly larvae.  It requires very little water but should not be moved while blooming. It typically only grows to around 5 inches tall and blooms between May and October.  It bears white flowers with 5 petals and spreads to 3 feet. The plant can also handle drought conditions as well as flooding, making it very versatile. Texas Frogfruit is also deer resistant. 

The Perfect Home for the Perfect Garden

When working on your perfect garden featuring those Texas native plants, you want to make sure that it is complementing your perfect El Paso home.  We at Tropicana Homes want to help you get there. We build new homes throughout El Paso and have been named ”Builder of the Year” 3 times by the Texas Association of Builders including “Best Volume Builder for the Year 2018”. And you can get up to 6% contribution when you use our preferred lender, Patriot Mortgage.You can even use a portion of that contribution as landscaping allowance and get a head start on that garden! Contact us today to get started on your next dream home!