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The Texas Native Plant Primer: 225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden
- GenresNature
252 pages, Paperback
Published March 4, 2025
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18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 26, 2025
I live near Houston, and gardening in this environment can be challenging. I'm trying to make my garden more sustainable by including more native plants. This introduction to the native plants of Texas was informative and well organized. I also appreciated the general gardening tips, since I'm still relatively new to gardening. I would recommend this primer for anyone in Texas who is tired of buying plants that can't survive our climate.
September 27, 2024
I just joined the local chapter of the Native Plant society and I am trying to landscape the yard at my new house so this book will come in handy:
September 23, 2025
I saw this inspiring book with its colorful, eye-catching cover in the "new books" section at the library and wanted to read it because I live in Texas and am a big aficionado of native plants. I really enjoyed the book because it has lovely photos, informative text, and engaging commentary. The author is clearly an expert in her field (haha!) and offers lots of useful tips on how to increase the number of native plants in our yards. I have now moved the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center further up my bucket list of places to visit in Texas, and I also have more ideas for what to add to my yard.
I wish DeLong-Amaya had explained what caliche soil is, but luckily that is easily remedied by consulting the Internet and finding out that caliche is "a soil accumulation of soluble calcium carbonate at depth, where it precipitates and binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt." Caliche is commonly found in semiarid regions such as South and West Texas and is "a whitish-gray or cream-colored soil layer that has been cemented by carbonates of calcium and magnesium. Caliche may occur as a soft, thin soil horizon (layer); a hard, thick bed; or a layer exposed to the surface by erosion (SSSA, 2001)."
I also was surprised the author didn't include native Texas perennial anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) in the book, because I have some in my flowerbed, and they are constantly swarmed by honeybees. However, the book is an excellent resource overall for any gardener brave enough to try gardening in this often inhospitable state, with all of its weather extremes. I wish more people would plant native plants because they are the key to helping native wildlife.
I wish DeLong-Amaya had explained what caliche soil is, but luckily that is easily remedied by consulting the Internet and finding out that caliche is "a soil accumulation of soluble calcium carbonate at depth, where it precipitates and binds other materials—such as gravel, sand, clay, and silt." Caliche is commonly found in semiarid regions such as South and West Texas and is "a whitish-gray or cream-colored soil layer that has been cemented by carbonates of calcium and magnesium. Caliche may occur as a soft, thin soil horizon (layer); a hard, thick bed; or a layer exposed to the surface by erosion (SSSA, 2001)."
I also was surprised the author didn't include native Texas perennial anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) in the book, because I have some in my flowerbed, and they are constantly swarmed by honeybees. However, the book is an excellent resource overall for any gardener brave enough to try gardening in this often inhospitable state, with all of its weather extremes. I wish more people would plant native plants because they are the key to helping native wildlife.
March 3, 2025
The Texas Native Plant Primer by Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center , Andrea DeLong-Amaya
225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden
#1 New Release in Southwest Region Gardening
From Texas's leading native plant organization comes an accessible and colorful guide to planting native for home gardeners at every level of expertise.
Do you want a garden that makes a real difference? Choose plants native to our Texas. The rewards will benefit you, your yard, and the environment—from reducing maintenance tasks to attracting earth-friendly pollinators such as native birds, butterflies, and bees. Native plant expert Andrea DeLong-Amaya and the world famous Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center make adding these superstar plants easier than ever before, with proven advice that every home gardener can follow.
This incomparable sourcebook includes native ferns, grasses, wildflowers, perennials, vines, shrubs, and trees. It’s everything you need
to create a beautiful and beneficial garden.
You will want to keep this book with your other garden books.
Wonderful pictures.
Lots of good advice.
I recommend this book.
The Texas Native Plant Primer by Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center , Andrea DeLong
is a wonderful 5 star book.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions shared here in this review are my own.
225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden
#1 New Release in Southwest Region Gardening
From Texas's leading native plant organization comes an accessible and colorful guide to planting native for home gardeners at every level of expertise.
Do you want a garden that makes a real difference? Choose plants native to our Texas. The rewards will benefit you, your yard, and the environment—from reducing maintenance tasks to attracting earth-friendly pollinators such as native birds, butterflies, and bees. Native plant expert Andrea DeLong-Amaya and the world famous Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center make adding these superstar plants easier than ever before, with proven advice that every home gardener can follow.
This incomparable sourcebook includes native ferns, grasses, wildflowers, perennials, vines, shrubs, and trees. It’s everything you need
to create a beautiful and beneficial garden.
You will want to keep this book with your other garden books.
Wonderful pictures.
Lots of good advice.
I recommend this book.
The Texas Native Plant Primer by Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center , Andrea DeLong
is a wonderful 5 star book.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced readers copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions shared here in this review are my own.
January 16, 2025
This is a great beginning gardening book on native plants with a focus for Texas. I did appreciate the discussion about the different regions throughout the state and that many of the plants were selected with a target for the various regions in Texas and were not biased towards central Texas. Beautiful photos and I loved seeing the landscapes of the Wildflower Center, too! I think the same authors should consider building on earlier natural/native plant gardening books and create a naturalistic design book specific for Texas gardeners.
Minor quibble re: the somewhat condescending discussion of dirt vs soil---dirt is a colloquial term that gardeners use when referring to soil and attempting to speak to gardeners as if they are uneducated for using the word dirt is honestly tiresome and should be retired from use by all garden communicators/educators in the future.
I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my review.
Minor quibble re: the somewhat condescending discussion of dirt vs soil---dirt is a colloquial term that gardeners use when referring to soil and attempting to speak to gardeners as if they are uneducated for using the word dirt is honestly tiresome and should be retired from use by all garden communicators/educators in the future.
I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for my review.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews