Anita’s Blog – What’s Your Passion?
- jjvanm
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
No matter your passion, you are likely to find it at the South Texas Master Naturalist native plant sales at booths 122-124, at the Annual Rio Grande Valley Home & Garden Show, March 20-22, at the McAllen Convention Center at 700 Convention Center Blvd., in McAllen.
Event Hours:
Friday, March 20 – 2 – 6 p.m.
Saturday, March 21 – 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday, March 22 – 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Most plants are $8 with some smaller pots at different prices.
Passion vines, Passiflora, are powerful pollen producers – which more than make up for their not being much of a dynamo in the nectar arena.
Passion vine flowers open before dawn. In summer, I’d be out at sunup to watch the passionflower activity. Western honeybees would already be at the pollen, as would Xylocopa griswoldi carpenter bees, day-flying eyed dysodia moths, skipper butterflies and an interesting nocturnal Ptiloglossa mexicana bee, described as large, hairy, loud and golden.
My initial introduction to the ptiloglossa was on a still summer morning. I had my phone aimed, ready to snap a shot of a honeybee drunk on nectar in the depths of a passionflower when suddenly a B-52 bomber approached at speed from behind me, whanged past my shoulder and landed in the honeybee-occupied flower. The honeybee remained calm; I retreated. The next day, armed with my big camera with medium range lens, I got photos of the noisy bee.
Passionflowers begin closing by noon, leaving a one-inch ball wrapped in fringed calyxes. Seeds develop within this structure in a gelatinous pulp. Birds eat the fruit, help distribute seeds. Passion vines are hosts to fritillary and heliconian butterflies. There are at least seven varieties of passion vines native to Texas with flowers in shades of blue, lavender and pink.
If purple’s your passion, you’re likely to find that, too at the native plant booth. Texas mountain laurel, Dermatophyllum secundiflorum, (formerly classified as Sophora secundiflora). Large clusters of purple flowers droop from the tree branches in spring. Bees and butterflies are drawn to the sweet-smelling nectar. Crisp, leathery leaves stay green all year. Texas mountain laurel is host plant to the attractive genista broom moth.
Consider pairing the purple with the white blooms of velvet lantana, Lantana veluina, a sturdy, full-bodied shrub that can grow to about four feet tall, bloom from spring into December, and provide an excellent source of nectar.
Vanilla-smelling white blooming clusters of whitebrush, Aloysia gratissima, form on tall, airy, slender branch tips and add a delicate height and texture to a pollinator garden. This is one of those native plants that will burst into bloom after rain but can also bloom from spring to frost. Flower spikes are rich in nectar, feeding bees and butterflies; the flowers stay open at night, attracting nocturnal moths. The seeds are eaten by seed-eating birds.
If you’re more into sunshine colors, we have esperanza, Tacoma stans; cow pen daisy, Verbesina encelioides; native sunflowers, Helianthus annuus; and the gold of late summer blooming goldenrod, Solidago genus.
Add in bright pink, red, mauve, lavender and blue with more than 50 different species of native flowering plants to choose from at the South Texas Border Chapter native plant sale booth at the Home & Garden Show. Plants and shrubs, like pink mint, Stachys drummondii; Turk’s cap, Malvaviscuc arboreus; tropical sage, Salvia coccineu; and crucita, Chromolaena odorata the dense, shrubby, fall blooming mist flower that is noted as the best nectar plant in all of South Texas for attracting butterflies and other insects and pollinators.
Some plants may bloom in all seasons, like tropical sage, Salvia coccinea and Turk’s cap, Malvaviscus drummondii, and can also grow in partial shade or full sun; they also attract hummingbirds.
Scorpion’s tail, Heliotropium angiospermum, is another excellent butterfly and other insect favorite that may bloom nearly all year.
And if you’ve got room for only one plant, we’ve got that, too:
Berlandier’s fiddlewood, Citharexylum berlandier, has it all! A stand-alone, large shrub that can grow to six feet tall with about that same girth. It is fast-growing, drought-resistant and provides a continuous, high-value food source. It is also a host plant for the common buckeye butterfly. It blooms and berries all year, inviting melodious songbirds, raucous chachalacas, chatty green jays, tuneful mockingbirds and more, to its branches and fruit. It is an important shrub for wildlife in the Lower Rio Grande Valley: nectar source for bees, butterflies and other insects; birds and other wildlife eat the berries and use the shrub’s dense branches for shelter and resting.
By whatever name, nectar, pollinator or butterfly garden, the results are the same: attract colorful butterflies, bees, other beneficial garden insects and native wildlife.
Butterflies, moths, and other insects get energy from sugar-rich nectar.
Nectar attracts pollinators like bees, flies, wasps and beetles that drink nectar and in addition, transfer pollen, a protein, from flower to flower.
Hummingbirds draw nectar from tubular shaped flowers and are pollinators, too.
White blooming plants that stay open at night attract moths and other night-flying insects that are food for native bats. – It’s all good!
Plant sales proceeds go toward our Texas Master Naturalist mission: Education, Outreach and Service to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within our Rio Grande Valley Texas communities.
