
Published in the McAllen Monitor, January 18, 2025
Story and photos by Anita Westervelt, Texas Master naturalist
While the nights are cold, sunny days are a pleasant time to be outdoors, digging holes for more plants and shrubs to jazz up your yard and attract birds and butterflies.
A multi-beneficial shrub is a special treat, like pink blooming Barbados cherry, Malpighia glabra. Also known as manzanita, it is a long lived, heat tolerant, densely branched shrub whose northernmost range is south Texas.
One plant is a good addition to any yard; three or more in a group, planted about three feet apart, makes an ornamental grove that will produce more fruit and keep birds happy. The slender growing shrubs can reach heights of six feet or more. Barbados cherry shrubs were once used as a popular thornless hedge.
Pink flowers bloom periodically from spring through winter, attracting adult butterflies for nectar. Bright red fruit follows about a month later and is quickly eaten by fruit-eating birds. The shrubs keep their leaves all year; a harsh winter may cause leaves to fall, but leaf buds will begin to appear come spring. Barbados cherry thrives in full sun or partial shade with little maintenance.

Lower to the ground, a couple of underused but important nectar sources are two yellow blooming shrubs: Mexican trixis, Trixis inula, and hairy wedelia, Zexmenia hispida.
Below photos: Laviana-white skipper and other butterflies on blooming Mexican trixis, at left; and Laviana-white skipper on a hairy wedelia flower, at right. (Photo by Anita Westervelt)
Trixis, also called Mexican trixis, flowers through much of the year but may become temporarily dormant in extreme heat. It often flowers after rain. The flowers bloom at the ends of the leafy branches, which are weak and tend to sprawl in a single shrub. A small grouping allows for a showier vista, attracting countless butterflies spring through fall. The shrub can grow to six feet tall, but more likely three to four feet.

Shorter still is Hairy wedelia. It grows naturally in a somewhat messy mound about 18 inches tall. More orderly are the spikes of golden yellow flowers that shoot out from the leafy mound. It blooms late spring to early fall. Long-lived and drought tolerant, it has a woody stem and can be cut back periodically.

A wildlife-desirable landscape includes a diverse assortment of plants of staggered heights and different bloom times. Flowering plants attract pollinators and nectar insects; fruit- and seed- producing shrubs and trees bring birds. Native plants provide birds with protective cover, nesting sites and food sources. In turn, fruit and seed eating birds help disperse seeds, some help with pollination and insectivorous birds eat insects. Variety is important to bring in a broader range of birds.
Learn about the benefits of native plants for the Rio Grande Valley and design considerations for your own landscape at the January 20, South Texas Border Chapter Texas Master Naturalist meeting. Robert Gaitan and Barbara Peet will present Landscapes for Birds.
The South Texas Border Chapter Texas Master Naturalists meet the third Monday each month at St. George Orthodox Church Hall, 704 West Sam Houston, in Pharr, at 6 p.m. for a social; presentations begin at 6:30 p.m. Meetings are free and open to the public.
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