THE TEXAS NATIVE PLANT PRIMER by Andrea DeLong-Amaya provides valuable information about "225 Plants for an Earth-Friendly Garden." DeLong-Amaya, the Director of Horticulture who oversees the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's gardens and nursery programs, has decades of experience and offers numerous suggestions. The first part of her text defines native plants and discusses growing or using them. One comment which struck me was: "I'm thrilled to have a platform to highlight standard reliable garden workhorses, and with luck, pique some excitement for the lesser knowns of the bunch. Some of these currently allude the trade and I invite you to share your interests and requests with your local growers and garden retailers." I wish local gardens, as helpful as they try to be, had more reference materials like this one. The photographs of plants and wildlife (including birds, mammals, and hummingbirds) are beautiful. DeLong-Amaya includes a helpful map showing ten "Vegetational Areas of Texas." What follows is a series of Plant Profiles with a photo, plus names, size, flowers, duration, light/soil/moisture requirements, habitat/ranges, and wildlife attractions. Those are divided into the following sections: Groundcovers and Turf, Perennials and Annuals, Grasses, Cacti and Other Succulents, Shrubs and Small Trees, Large Trees, and Vines. However, I wish there were more charts and that all of these profiles could be searchable (like the Native Plant Database). Imagine asking for a colorful, flowering, low maintenance plant which grows well in full sun on the Edwards Plateau, attracts pollinators, and tolerates cold. I have planted for the last two years, and did find a page on Silver Ponyfoot (love the name and appearance, but it struggles to winter over), but had to browse through almost all of the entries trying to find lantanas since the index was not provided in the preview. DeLong-Amaya could definitely strengthen this text by providing a sampling of suggested combinations for each of the vegetational areas – her readers would gladly browse the book to learn more and to personalize choices according to their situation. A bibliography is included.

Database link: https://www.npsot.org/resources/native-plants/native-plants-database/

I cannot read this book on my computer.
no star rating.
I wish I could read this book.
This look like a wonderful book.

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.

This book featured clear photos and concise information about numerous native Texas plants. It will be an invaluable resource for not only growing and identifying the plants in your area, but also sustaining the ecosystem that's vital for these plants to flourish.

A lovely and informative book about native plants in Texas. I liked it enough to order a copy for reference as I plan for future garden ideas. I especially like that each plant profile includes maintenance information. My only wish is that the organization put more focus on the ecoregions. There is a section that covers it, but it would have been helpful to have the plants organized by ecoregion so I could easily identify what I can grow in my area without having to sift through all the plant profiles.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. A great book for those who want to garden and plant native plants in Texas.

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:

This is a great guide for Texas gardeners. The author goes into a lot of reasons to plant native plants and then features detailed information with photos for over 200 plants.

I do wish the author was a little more wildlife friendly. One of the main reasons to plant native plants is to support wildlife — including insects and animals, obviously. Caterpillars not only turn into moths and butterflies (which are both beautiful and necessary pollinators) but they are crucial food sources for birds and have a right to be here on their own past all the ways they contribute. Despite all this, the author gives advice like hand picking caterpillars off plants and even using Bt which also kills other insects and butterflies. There’s also lots of talk about how to deter deer and so on. Native gardens are beautiful and beneficial for us humans, but it’s time for us to also recognize that other creatures should be able to share the benefits. I have no deterrents in my gardens and take no steps against anything from rabbits to cabbage moths to aphids to squirrels, and I have found that they are completely a non-issue. Nature keeps it all in balance and the result is a yard full of birds, butterflies and blossoms, with more than enough for everyone.

I also was surprised the author praises cultivars so much in plant profiles, after she points out the serious problems with them earlier in the book. By frequently recommending cultivars instead of the true natives, she is undermining the whole point of planting native plants. I wonder if others wrote some of these descriptions or if the essay about the harms of cultivars was just lip service.

That said, it’s a fantastic primer on native plants in the region.

I read a temporary digital loan of this book for review.