If you're planning your landscape for color, beauty and food for the birds, try making native or adapted plants part of the picture. Here are some interesting plant options.
- Staghorn Sumac - from the Cashew family of plants, it turns bright scarlet in autumn and has small clusters of small red, one-seeded fruits. These make beautiful additions to dried flower arrangements. The dried leaves and roots have also been powdered and used in tanning and dying.
- Common Myrtle - an evergreen shrub with shiny leaves, small fragrant white flowers and aromatic black berries. The Myrtle was considered sacred to Venus and was used as a symbol of love.
- Huckleberry bush - found wild in areas of East Texas, this bush makes small blue-black edible berries that are good for cobblers and jelly. And birds love them.
- Bear-grass - from the yucca or agava family, it has grass-like foliage with white flowers.
- American Beauty Berry - sometimes called French Mulberry, it makes a row of bright purplish berries in the fall that birds love.
Doris Waits, Smith County Master Gardener
Trees and Shrubs Index
Gardening Tips For NorthEast Texas Index
East Texas Piney Woods Gardening Home Page