- Howdy, I'm John Hart Asher.

This week on "Central Texas Gardener," visit a pocket prairie restoration smack dab in the middle of Austin, where successional planting benefits wildlife and conserves water.

Meet Texas Master Naturalist Ashley Landry and discover how she got involved with native plant rescue and why it's so important.

Daphne Richards answers your questions, and Marissa Kinsaul demonstrates pro tips for garden maintenance.

So, let's get growing, right here, right now.

- [Announcer] "Central Texas Gardener" is made possible by the generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden.

Thank you.

(lighthearted music) (birds chirping) - I'm an environmental designer, and one of my favorite projects is a pocket prairie restoration smack dab in the middle of downtown Austin.

Over the course of a few years, my team and I tackled the invasives and then started the successional planting to benefit wildlife and conserve water.

Why am I precariously perched atop of Austin?

Well, it's because we're showing just how adaptable prairies are.

Now we're looking at 800 square feet of grassland perched atop a pool house.

Prairies, as it turns out, are really great at dealing with a lot of challenges that urban issues have.

Rainwater runoff, carbon sequestration, heat island mitigation, habitat.

When we start prairies, we're talking about trajectories, not interventions.

Prairies let us practice what I like to call the art of becoming.

We are smack in downtown Austin at a private residence who had decided to make habitat a pivotal point of their landscape design.

What you see behind me is a new pocket prairie.

This property was owned by the same family for a long time.

We're talkin' about the 1800s.

So, we were asked to come in and establish habitat based on that historic climax community.

What does that mean?

Well, all the plants, the grasses, the flowers that would've been here when we still had the bison and the wildfires coming through.

So what you're looking at is a whole bloom from a seeding that we did last October.

Let's talk about some of the steps that we went to make this prairie happen.

We took a year to prepare this site.

There were some invasive species.

We looked at treating the landscape to get those out of there.

We then treated the soils with compost and biochar.

We're using biochar more and more in our projects because, why?

It would've been in the soil due to the wildfires that would've swept through every 10 to 11 years.

So, that has a profound effect on the microbial associations in the soil, and we wanna promote that.

We then mulched the site with eight inches of mulch for a whole year.

Now, why do we do that?

Well, that's because we wanna address warm and cool season grasses and weeds that pop up.

If you just do it for a couple of months, that's great.

If that's all the time you got, that's better.

But if we can do it for a full year, then we're able to address those that we won't get from just a singular season treatment.

After that year, we pulled all that mulch back off, and we used a no-till drill.

What is that?

Well, that's a piece of equipment that allows us to put fluffy grass seed and hard dense wildflower seed into separate bins, And we pull it over the site, and it deposits that seed at just the, that right sweet spot depth so that it will be happy and emerge.

We always want to plan to sow those wildflower seeds in October.

We've got clasping coneflower.

We've got Plains coreopsis.

We've got Monarda citriodora, so bee balm.

We've got blue curls.

It's already flowered this year, but it's getting ready to set some seed.

You can also see a lot of drooping.

Well, that's because of this glorious rain we've had this year.

Before all of this was here, we had our little blue stem that we had planted, our sedge.

We had a big blue bonnet display.

As we move a little bit later in spring, we're hopefully gonna see some Mexican hat.

We're starting to see more of the Gaillardia, the blanket flower, coming through.

We're also seeing more basket flower really starting to bloom.

It's pretty tall at this point, but that's coming out.

And we're really anticipating and starting to see more of the grasses.

The grasses are goin' a lot slower because of the fact that they've got a lot of light competition going on 'cause again, we've got this explosion in color.

As we move into summer, we're going to start to see standing cypress, hopefully some Liatris.

Again, this is a brand new prairie.

So, we'll see what she gives us.

And again, this year, really special wet, mild spring.

So, we're gonna see a really extended color palette as we go through.

Some years when it's hot and dry, you might only get a little bit of a burst, and then it goes to sleep.

A majority of what we're lookin' at right now are annuals.

When we do these prairie plantings, initially you get this big explosion of annual growth, and that's great.

But this prairie was designed so that we have succession that will occur and that will slowly start to morph more towards grass dominance and perennials.

So, while all those guys and gals are in here right now, you can't see 'em.

Prairies are grass-dominant systems.

There's a saying that the author Bill Holm has written that I really love that says, "A woodsman can look at a square mile of prairie "and only see grass, "but a prairie person can look at a square foot "and see a universe."

And that's what we're after, folks.

The grasses are really a main driver, and they can seem kind of maybe boring.

They're not.

They've got flowers, but it doesn't look like the forbs, but that's okay 'cause they're a pivotal part of the prairie's evolution.

Now, we installed over 3000 one-gallon little blue stem plants into this prairie.

Why do we wanna plant some of these species like little blue stem?

Well, they're what's known as late successional species.

So you can have a baby prairie, and you can have a mature prairie.

And our mature prairies, we see some of these grasses like little blue stem, big blue stem, Indian grass, switch grass.

We wanna make sure those are in there.

Now, we can come to a infant site, if you say, and put out a thousand pounds of little blue stem grass, but we're probably not gonna have sustained growth.

You might get really good initial germination, but it's gonna crash.

Why is that the case?

Well, it's the microbes in the soil.

As we talk about maturity in prairies, it's not just about what plants are there.

The plants are demonstrating the life that's in the soil.

So, to shortcut that process, we know that if we're gonna plug a living, one-gallon little blue stem, say, that we're essentially helping inoculate those soils and helping shortcut that restoration process.

Prairies have the same challenges or considerations that just your regular garden would.

Light is a big one.

So, as you can see, we've got a lot of mature live oaks behind us that we will love and wanna protect, but we also want to get that diverse herbaceous understory, grasses and flowers underneath.

So, the mix where we, you saw earlier had some of the same characters because there's some that go between light and shady areas.

We've got other species, and right now a little harder to see, but there's a lot, over 700 sedge species, nutsedge species, that will eventually start to dominate this as these wildflowers recede.

And that's the name of the game with pocket prairies.

It's always about transition, transition, transition.

So, let's talk a little bit of tasks with a pocket prairie.

So, you can see there's some florid abundance behind us, but as these things, some things die and seed out, we will clean that up.

In nature, the wildfires and the bison and all the other ungulates would've done that for us.

So, unfortunately we can't get any of those here in downtown Austin, but what we can do is let these things go to seed, and then we can start to dethatch, remove some of that dead organic material.

And that's key, because if you don't, you're gonna start to lose diversity over time because you're going to essentially mulch yourself out of business.

So, we'll let these guys.

We've got a blue curls right here.

You can see it's starting to go to seed.

It's got a little bit of flower left, but we'll let this go to seed.

Let this completely die out because we want that seed to go back in the ground.

And then maybe late summer, or we can even wait 'til the winter is when we will come in here and do a really big cutback.

Let's go into a little bit more detail about dethatching.

What do we mean?

It really depends on the scale of the vegetative growth in your garden.

In this case, you can see it's pretty tall.

So, what we would want to do is come in and cut it physically, and then we would probably pick it up by hand and then move it and store it or compost it or what we want.

If you've got a short grass prairie, well, you might just be kind of mowing and raking, and even with a mid-grass prairie with blue grama and side-oats grama and stuff like that.

But the main point is to just to get all the stuff out so that the new seeds can sprout, see the light of day in the next seasons, and then thrive.

This is the wonderful thing that prairies offer us is this chance to reflect and watch these transitions occur over time.

It is a continual dynamic process that really rewards us, but ultimately what occurs is up to the prairie.

With all the growth going on, we're losing a lot of habitat, and that can include our own native plants.

The loss of those plants impacts the welfare of our bees and our butterflies and birds and a whole other bunch of critters.

Ashley Landry, the founder and project manager of the Native Plant Rescue Project jumped in to save 'em.

So, welcome, Ashley.

It's wonderful to see you.

- Wonderful to be here, thank you.

- Wonderful.

How did you get involved with native plant rescue?

- A little over two years ago, I became a Texas Master Naturalist, and I just started learning the plants of Williamson County in central Texas, plants that I had never noticed before.

And I just really fell in love with these super amazing plants.

- [John] It's the, called the Texas Native Plant Rescue Project.

Who all is involved?

- Yeah, it's a project of two local nonprofits, the Williamson County chapter of the Native Plant Society and the Good Water Texas Master Naturalist in Williamson County.

- Okay, how did y'all just get started with all of this?

- It goes back to when I learned about these plants, and I started wanting to put the plants of Central Texas in my yard to try to rebuild some habitat.

And then I couldn't find them, even at native plant sales or the native nurseries.

These unique species I was finding in the wild, I couldn't put back into my yard.

So, at the same time, I saw development all around us where we're throwing these plants away that we also don't have access to.

So, I really felt called to bridge that gap and see what we could do to take this thing that we're throwing away that we desperately need at the same time.

And so, I created the Native Plant Rescue Project.

- I was wondering, how long ago was that?

- Last year.

- [John] Last year?

- Yeah, it's a little over a year now.

- So, a little squeaky new.

So, how do y'all approach a project?

And then, you know, when y'all go to a site, you harvest 'em and then where do you, do you give them away?

So what, you know, how do you deal with that?

- For these construction sites, there's a window that we try to get out there.

We can't really go once the equipment is on site.

And so it's a challenge trying to figure out which properties are going next before they begin.

So, we really have to look at construction permits and then get a list of projects that are going in the near future.

I go check them out on satellites, do drive-by's, and try to see where the highest quality habitat is.

And then, I'm reaching out to landowners explaining what we do.

You know, we have insurance.

We can do liability waivers, you know.

And so, once we get an owner to agree, I'll go out and scout the property if it's a large property, and GPS mark the important plants.

And then we bring our rescuers together, our volunteers, on rescue day.

- That's wonderful.

So, and just to be clear, so you're actively speaking with developers or proactively going out and finding out where this development is gonna occur beforehand?

- Right, because once it starts, it's pretty much too late.

So, we're trying to find that sweet spot at a few months before.

And we do have to get permission from the landowners.

So, we are often working with developers, but that landowner has to say, yes.

- You're like the Sherlock Holmes of native plants.

That's wonderful.

- It's a lot of work in the background.

It really is.

- Well, I mean, for someone who, you know, maybe isn't into native plants as much, why, I mean, why is this so important?

They're just some stuff, you know.

You can go get some more.

I mean, why is this so important?

- Well, I think of, they're the building blocks of our habitat here in central Texas, and they have their own unique genetics.

So, even if the same species is out in West Texas, ours are gonna be locally adapted.

And so, we are losing those genetics with the development and also our native pollinators are involved.

Our butterflies, our native bees, they don't need just 10 species.

They need a huge amount of biodiversity.

They need all of these species.

And so, we are taking it apart with development.

So, we need to have those building blocks saved to put it back together.

- Building blocks, I love that.

Well, what are some of your favorite plants?

I don't wanna put you on the spot, but what are some of your favorite finds that you've encountered?

- You know, the land continues to surprise me.

We found rare plants.

We found the plateau milkweed vine, and a lot of these plants we send to botanical gardens.

So, we're sending these to the Wildflower Center.

We're sending these to San Antonio Botanicals.

So, we're not only saving them, but we're trying to conserve them as well.

- [John] Wonderful.

- [Ashley] That top of mind.

- Even if you're a plant nerd like ourselves, I mean, you really couldn't locate these anywhere else commercially.

- You can't buy most of them, even from the native plant nurseries, even from the native plant sales.

So, we are trying to change that as well.

We give plants and seeds to local growers who grow native plants.

And so eventually some of these more diverse species that are special to central Texas will be available to the public.

That's a big.

- That's wonderful.

- Part of our mission as well.

The Virginia snakeroot is a really cool plant.

It's.

- It's beautiful.

- The pipevine swallowtail butterfly needs this species to complete its lifecycle.

It's a host plant.

This is the Carolina woollywhite.

- Ah, I love that.

- It has a great color with the leaves.

It actually gets a few feet tall.

It's fairly common, but you can't buy it right now.

I love it as a landscape plant.

This is Texas Indian mallow, and it's nice because it can grow in part shade as well as just full sun.

A very common ranch plant, the snow-on-the-mountain, and this is one of our milkweed vines.

It's a Talayote, but there's just hundreds of different species out there.

- Yes, well, I mean, I think it's, you know, we tend to look at the landscape and see a bunch of green, but there really is so much diversity.

And these again might not be necessarily considered the most striking, but they're like, to your point, they're very important for habitat consideration.

Fine, how can landowners get in touch with you though?

- Several different ways.

The best way is probably the Williamson County Native Plant Society website.

So, there's a contact form.

We also have Instagram presence, and they can reach out to me through Instagram, yeah.

- I'm a follower, yes.

And others, I mean, if it's landowners, if people wanna volunteer and help with this wonderful work, how would they get in touch with you as well?

- So, right now we're encouraging people to get in touch with their local chapter of the Native Plant Society.

I am based in Williamson County, but we are working on spreading this program to other chapters.

So, especially if they want to get involved in maybe leading this project for whatever location they're in.

We really would like to see this all over the state of Texas.

- That's great.

So, you're wanting to expand outside of Williamson County?

You're just statewide.

- You know, there's plants that need rescuing everywhere.

We have special species everywhere, so yeah.

We really want the flora of Texas backed up.

We want the seeds.

We want the plants.

you know, make sure that we have these things in conservation.

- Sure, and you're not, and to be clear, you're not just harvesting or saving, I should say, plants.

You're looking at seed collection as well.

- Yes, and you know, plant rescue is exciting, but seed rescue is more important.

It's easier.

You can bank the seeds, You can store them for a long period of time.

Your growers actually prefer seeds.

You know, when we're putting these plants in our school gardens, you know, we don't wanna grow them from seed.

We wanna just be able to transplant them into the school garden or our community pollinator gardens.

So, we do a lot of that, but as far as conservation work and the growers, you know, they'd rather have seed.

Sometimes our growers are taking the plants, growing them out for seed and then, you know, propagating them that way or through cuttings, but yeah, seeds are very important.

- And then I just wanna wrap up with the Native Plant Week is in, the third October we talked about, and why is that?

- Well, in Texas, the fall is a great time to plant.

You get more rainfall, and the temperatures are a little milder.

So, it's a great time to plant.

- I wanna thank you, Ashley, for comin' by.

I really love your organization.

It's really exciting the work that you're doing, and it's extremely important.

So, thank you so much for takin' time out of your busy plant rescuin' schedule to speak with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- So now, folks, let's check in with Daphne Richards.

(lighthearted music) - Thanks, John Hart.

Augie and I are happy to be here.

The clasping coneflowers in John Hart's prairie design were certainly quite a sight last May, and in all the crowds, there was one that looked a little different, sort of like a velvety pin cushion.

This odd development is an area of malformed tissue known as fasciation.

Most often found in the tips of stems, leaves, and flowers, fasciation occurs at the site of cell division.

It's not contagious and is usually only found on one area of an individual plant.

Reocurrence the following year is also rare, and ultimately this is not an issue to worry about.

We still aren't sure exactly what causes fasciation, although the current consensus is that there are multiple causes including both bacterial and viral infections, damage from insect feeding, spontaneous genetic mutation, and environmental anomalies.

Think frost or herbicide damage.

I have never seen it on Mexican hat.

So, we really thank Dripping Springs gardeners, Ernie and Barbara Manchin, for sharing this one.

Sandra Santos Prianos sent in a photo of her fern leaf with fasciation, which can look quite different in ferns than in other plant species and is another one that it's new to me.

And Katie Franklin and her husband were intrigued by this fasciated stem on their mountain laurel that they grew from seed.

We'd love to hear from you.

Click on centraltexasgardener.org to send us your stories, pictures, and videos.

- I've got to tell you straight out, there's no such thing as a no maintenance garden.

Sure, we can choose plants that don't need babysittin', but every living thing needs a little grooming now and then.

Make the job easier with pro tips from Marissa Kinsaul, ground supervisor at ACC.

(lighthearted music) (birds chirping) - Hi, I'm Marissa Kinsaul, and I'm the Grounds Supervisor at Austin Community College.

Today, we'll be discussing five tasks and 10 tools to get your garden and landscape back on track.

First task is leaf cleanup.

This is for aesthetic appeal, sanitation, and leaf reuse.

You can mulch leaves with a mower and leave them there to fertilizer your lawn, or you can gather them with a large leaf rake such as this one.

Or you can use a cordless electric blower.

Leaves can be used for mulch, compost, or bagged and repurposed for the city compost or given to a local gardener.

Texas A&M has a great, free leaf recycling article available online.

Task two, plant cleanup.

This means the removal of dead plant tissues to make way for new growth and replanting.

This is not the time for winter pruning, which is a more extreme cutback, but you may wanna remove plants which have died over the summer and trim back dead blooms and stalks on ornamentals.

I don't advise removing the roots from plants as decaying roots add nutrients into your soil, and plants that seem dead may return.

So, trim only the above-ground dead growth.

Tools.

A good pair of hand shears and a good quality bucket.

I recommend investing in a high-quality pair of hand shears.

I use mine for trimming back dead foliage, harvesting, and cutting flowers for a vase.

Keep your hand shears clean and oiled, and they'll last for a very long time.

Task three, fertilizing, to boost plant health and help plants recover from summer stress.

Tools.

Gloves, an appropriate fertilizer, and an appropriate fertilizer applicator.

Check in with your local garden center to find the right natural fertilizer for the job.

Avoid fertilizers that also include herbicide.

For a dry granular fertilizer, you're going to use a broadcast fertilizer spreader, such as this one.

Now, for a liquid fertilizer, you'll use a spray applicator, such as this one.

A liquid fertilizer will be diluted with water, and the very important part with these two tools is they help ensure that your fertilizer is applied at the correct ratio for optimal soil health.

I recommend wearing gloves when applying fertilizer to avoid skin contact with the product and possible irritation.

I like to use both a lightweight, knit pair of gloves and stiffer leather gloves for various garden tasks.

Task four, mulching.

Mulching is for temperature control, moisture control, organic matter addition, and a nice clean look.

Your tools for mulching are a wheelbarrow, your gloves, a shovel, and a bow rake.

This is a tool called a bow rake, which differs from a leaf rake because it has a stronger structure, and it's excellent for spreading mulch.

The back of the rake especially can create a nice clean look.

You can purchase hardwood mulch from your local garden center or hardware store, or you can purchase cedar mulch for a nice scent and a longer life.

Fallen leaves also work as mulch and work best when they're mulched into smaller pieces using a mower or a blower with a mulching attachment.

Task five, planting and seeding.

This is the time to plant our winter gardens using fall varieties.

Beets, carrots, and spinach do best when planted from seed, and head lettuce, calendula, and snapdragons do better when transplanted from four-inch pots.

If you're starting a garden for the first time, a grubbing hoe and a digging fork are good tools to get you started.

Use the hoe to remove any unwanted weeds and grasses and use your fork to loosen up compacted soils and help incorporate compost.

A Hori Hori is one of my favorite garden tools.

(tool whooshing) A Hori Hori is a multi-purpose tool, and I use it mostly for planting, along with measuring, clearing weeds, and harvesting.

Don't forget, this is the time to plant our native wildflowers.

Use your garden hoe and your digging fork to clear a patch of earth before a rain.

Throw out your native seed and use your bow rake to gently rake in the seed to ensure good soil contact.

I hope these suggestions motivate y'all to get outside and refresh your landscapes.

Happy gardening.

- Find out more and watch online at centraltexasgardener.org.

Until next time, remember to adopt the pace of nature.

Her secret is patience.

(lighthearted music) (birds chirping) - [Announcer] "Central Texas Gardner" is made possible by the generous support from Lisa and Desi Rhoden.

Thank you.

(upbeat flute music)