The in our Valley Native Plants

STORY BY COLLEEN CURRAN HOOK | ILLUSTRATION BY DON BREEDEN

When you walk the grounds of Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen, you see the beauty of our native plants in small and large spaces around the urban sanctuary. Not only are they beautiful, but they also significantly help our wildlife in a time when a small percentage of native plants remain in the wild. The Granjeno (gran-hen-oh) is an example of a giving native plant from our region. The evergreen shrub will attract many birds to the sweet fruit in your garden. We find green jays, mockingbirds, cardinals and long-billed thrashers eat the tiny orange berries. The berry-bearing plant appreciates the birds and other animals spreading their seeds.

The Rio Grande Valley enjoys a number of different habitats with over 1,000 reported native species. There are plants found here that occur nowhere else in the United States. With plenty of sunshine but low rainfall, most of our native plants tend to have small leaves. A beautiful woody plant for your garden is the guayacán. It vaguely resembles the appearance of a northern evergreen and in the spring you’ll see violet flowers and fruit supporting the wildlife. There are also a number of native cacti that thrive in the region like pincushion cactus, Texas prickly pear and strawberry pitaya.

With such a large palette of native plants, Quinta Mazatlan selected 32 that gardeners can choose from to create tiny habitats at home. These native plants are featured in a beautiful poster designed by Brownsville artist Don Breeden, which is available in the Nature Store at Quinta Mazatlan. Some of the plants chosen were Texas lantana, lazy and cowpen daisy, cenizo, widow’s tears, silverleaf nightshade, Rio Grande phlox and tropical sage, just to name a few. Not only are these plants colorful and vibrant, some can be used in the kitchen too.

When creating your garden environment, include pieces of wood/ stumps for shelter and décor. Add water for the wildlife, even a simple shallow bowl or a water drip onto a rock. We each can provide homes for our wildlife by replicating forests on a small scale in our own little spaces. Remember that native plants can co-exist with what already