By Brad Wier. Recent storms were no drought-buster, but they certainly greened up our gardens. Time to tidy up — your neighbors will thank you!
A visiting friend marveled at how fecund my front yard was looking. “Fecund” I exclaimed, immediately reaching for my pocket dictionary. He assured me it was a compliment, and though I pretended to settle down, I checked in with Merriam Webster at the earliest opportunity.
Defined as an abundance of offspring, vegetation, or new growth, fecund is synonymous with fertile, fruitful and prolific. That’s a spring day for sure in San Antonio, especially now that we’ve received more rain in the past month than we have since last summer.
Abundance? Check. Fresh green leaves? Plenty. Flowers, squirrels, berries, mosquitos, moths, weeds and everything in between? Heck yeah. Mine is a wildscape, offering hummingbirds, thrashers and migrating birds enough benign negligence to encourage lingering.
Until recently, the biggest surprise this spring had been the lack of weeds and spring ephemerals, many of which had attempted to germinate but withered over the warm and relentlessly dry fall, winter and early spring.
Passion flower may be a weedy native vine, but it has intricate flowers and it’s the larval host for the spectacular gulf fritillary butterfly.The sedges, native grass mix and assorted trailing plants that make up my native groundcover are now back in business after a long, patient slumber. And while we all know the weather will turn back to full scorch on a dime, for now it’s a joy to see the WaterSaver landscape letting its hair down (hello passionflower).
With the first flush of fully-watered growth unfurling across pathways, there’s brush sculpting- coming up — a chance to exercise the hula hoe, grass whip and shears that had been quietly stowed away for lack of business.
For a wildscape, a bit of clipping and tidying around the edges and borders of the design maintains the appearance of intentionality needed to reassure neighbors and HOAs.
Three-lobed false mallow is the biggest weed in my groundcover areas and the biggest single recipient of my post-precipitation clipping. It’s exuberant, green, resilient, and most importantly, mowable — filling in that important “thornless and better than mud” native groundcover niche in the landscape.
With its yellow flowers, it resembles horse herb, growing in the same area but with a much longer green season. A little too rough for carefree bare feet perhaps, but recycled rubber stepping stones will provide comfier pathways wherever needed.
The focus of my watering efforts this summer will be newly planted trees. With the neighborhood’s oldest trees having taken a hit over the past few years of drought, I’ve been doing my part to restore my corner of the forest canopy with a variety of native redbuds, persimmons, mountain laurels and other small trees appropriate to our neighborhood’s lot sizes.
Most were planted in fall and winter, but a couple of late additions will need a bit more hose dragging this summer. Other than that, with the weather cooperating, this WaterSaver landscape has achieved a pleasant kind of permanence: when it comes to water, it’s mostly taking care of itself.
Brad Wier is a SAWS conservation planner. Years in South Texas landscaping and public horticulture gave him a lasting enthusiasm for native plants that don’t die when sprinklers — and gardeners — break down. He’d rather save time and water for kayaking and tubing. He is a former kilt model, and hears hummingbirds.