Summer is the Time of the Natives

Pyhlla nodiflora, Frogfruit. A great shade ground cover with verbena like flowers

Ah, Summer.  The heat index was 105 degrees yesterday, today looks like it will rain enough to make tomorrow miserable, and the weekend doesn't look much better.  This means, for those of us that WANT to get out in the gardens, our plants may not be looking all that great.  Geraniums are yellowing, petunias are petunia-ing, and Periwinkles are... well, they are probably fine. 

Veronia lettermannii, Iron Butterfly

Gaillardia pulchella, Sundance Bi Color

Ratibida columnifera, Prairie Cone Flower in front of Blond Ambition Grama Grass

Native Bees enjoying some Route 66 Coreopsis.

But there is a class of plants that is, just now, beginning to look their best!  Of course these are the plants that were here before any of us were; native plants!  Natives will thrive in any condition Oklahoma can throw at us because they have spent countless ages adapting to our, eh hem, interesting weather patterns.  The best part is that most of them start blooming when our spring perennials and annuals are starting to fade. 

Little Henry Rudbeckia setting buds

Conoclinum coelestinum, Blue Mist Flower.

Joe Pye Weed
Eupatorium fistulosum
Does best in a low lying, damp area but will grow well in almost any condition with at least partial sun.

4-5 feet tall, but we do have a 2 foot tall dwarf variety
2 feet wide
Blooms July to frost.

Pow Wow Wild Berry Cone Flower
Echinacea purpurea

Found variety of  the native Cone Flower that does not need deadheading.  Excellent as a showy specimen or planted in mass.  Does best in poor dry soil and full sun.

2-3 feet tall
1 foot wide
Blooms June to August

El Reno Sideoats Grama
Bouteloua curtipendula

This is my favorite grass. All grasses bloom, but this grass has one of the most obvious and "traditional" flowers.  It forms a nice clump of minty green leaves and flower stems with reddish blossoms that then form seeds that song birds flock to.  In Fall, the leaves and seed heads turn gold and remain that way through Winter.

2-3 feet tall
2 feet wide
 Prefers dry conditions.

These are just a few of the natives that are available. Slash Pine, Kentucky Coffee Tree, and Catalpas, Blue Grama Grass, Indian Steel Grass, even a Sugar Maple!  So, if your yard or garden usually look a little drab this time of year and you want some color or texture to tide you over until Pansy and Mum time, think about some native plants.  The are easy, sustainable, and better than organic because they rarely need ANYTHING applied to them to grow well.  In fact, fertilizers and compost can harm or disfigure natives like Rudbeckia, grasses and Cone Flower either by encouraging too much growth so that they flop over or just burn the leaves!  They will need regular, deep waterings in their first year, but soon they will need nothing except the occasional pruning or deadheading to keep them looking tidy.