Wildflower Wonders

Backyard meadow now mirrors beauty of our Texas highways

By Amy Rognlie

“For me, wildflowers are joy-giving. They have enriched my life and fed my soul and given beautiful memories to sustain me.” — Lady Bird Johnson

At our house, we created a wildflower patch that we, rather grandly for a modest 5-foot by 10-foot plot, call “The South Meadow.”

It started routinely enough when we moved the pile of decomposing firewood and realized that we had a lovely patch of ground that had not yet been designated for anything else. The first year, with fanciful visions of a thick, waist-high patch of glorious color, I raked the thin dirt hastily, dumped a bag or two of topsoil over the lumps and bumps, and threw out way too many wildflower seeds.

Then summer came. Yep, that summer. The summer where we had, oh, 75 days above 100 degrees. In a row. The poor little seedlings were thoroughly baked before they had a chance to show their stuff.

This year, my husband joined the fun with his characteristic sense of the propriety of things. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right,” he announced. With our granddaughter’s eager help, he bordered my heretofore haphazard “meadow” with landscape timbers.

He raked the soil until it was perfectly level, then added some good dirt, ruminated on the proper mix of seed, and sowed it at just the right time.

Happily, we now have seedlings of all shapes and sizes, and even some coreopsis and gaillardias that are blooming, towering over the cosmos, Indian paintbrush and California poppies that are taking their sweet time.

We first visited Texas a decade or so ago, in the springtime, when we were contemplating a move from Colorado. Little did we know that it was one of the best times of year to appreciate the beauty of the Lone Star state. As we drove and drove and drove through Texas on that long trip, we marveled at the stunning swaths of wildflowers flowing like rivers of color beside the highways. It wasn’t until after we settled in Central Texas that we learned some of the history of the roadside wildflower patches.

According to the Texas Department of Transportation, highway officials started to notice as early as 1917 that wildflowers were some of the first plants to reappear after road construction. They hired a landscape architect to nurture and encourage wildflower growth along the highways, and by the 1930s, delayed mowing each spring until after the wildflower season was over.

In 1965, the Texas’ Highway Beautification Act, championed by Lady Bird Johnson, was signed into law by her husband, President Lyndon B. Johnson. This legislation limited billboards, junkyards and outdoor advertising, further laying the groundwork for the widescale conservation and beautification efforts that we notice along so many highways in our state today. Currently, TxDOT buys and sows 30,000 pounds of wildflower seed a year, resulting in over 5,000 species of wildflowers and native grasses flourishing along thousands of miles of Texas highways. Tourists and photographers come from all over the world to appreciate the place we proudly call home.

Now, if only I could get my own humble little meadow to thrive like that, I’d be one happy gardener.