As in a Painting

Mimi Cavender

In early 20th-century oil paintings of the Texas Hill Country, glistening blue air arcs over rolling grasslands studded with juniper, huge live oaks, red oaks, scattered mesquite and prickly pear. Here and there is a half-hidden barn, a grazing cow. But in that vastness, there’s rare evidence of human beings—a painterly preference to leave out the people? But there were indeed far fewer of us. And of every thing that came with us.

If we were to paint—or photograph—the Hill Country today in ways for our unknown descendants to remember us, what would they see? And if they record images of their Texas hills for their posterity, what will those generations see?

As the climate warms and dries, this “favored place” (read Elroy Bode) is already changing. We live those changes now, with every pasture paved, every oak motte cleared and cedar brake mulched, every grass fire, every summer of triple-digit heat. Combine climate change with Texas’ unrestricted suburban development, and now imagine what pasture, yard, and garden—if there still are such things—will look like for future Texans.

To make the imagining easier, let’s take a little walk around our home places, our neighborhood green spaces. In what may be this summer’s preview of the hotter drier new normal, let’s see what plant species thrive and what may not survive. Just the plants. Next month we’ll check in with the animals.

Okay, first a cheap shot. Two cheap shots.

After chopping out enough caliche, most of us had given up on roses long before this scorching summer, hadn’t we? And we joined the Native Plant Society or became Master Gardeners or Texas Master Naturalists. And got wise. So now we cherish the drought-and-heat-tolerant native plants we already have on our property, and we buy the native stuff we want, and sometimes cheat a bit on that whole native thing. We’re learning. Let’s keep walking…

Read closely the story the **grasses** tell. These three Hill Country suburban lawn types have different survival chances after prolonged drought.

In Hill Country suburban yards—with mandatory watering restrictions and homeowners’ concern for water conservation—by July of the 2022 Texas drought, the landscape is really showing the strain. Here on the top level above the stone wall, under our feet, what little was left of the old St. Augustine turf lawn after last winter’s week-long freeze is now water-starved to a crispy brown. Its dead roots are coming up by handfuls.

Now look out over the tangle of wilting Primrose Jasmine. The little front meadow below us had been returned to nature with a wild-seed mix. In three years it has grown lushly tufted with native clump grasses and Texas Verbena. It survived the freeze, and the drought has it in a golden stasis—waiting patiently for rain to green it up again.

But now look beyond the stone gabions into the next-door neighbor’s yard. It has the same thin alkaline soil, the same history of St. Augustine turf left unwatered for several years. But it was regularly mown down to the dirt before it could reseed or its “runners” establish; it starved and baked to death. It won’t easily recover, and the sloped yard’s bare soil will begin to erode with the first hard rain. There are properties large and small all over Central Texas just like these. Master gardeners and naturalists have their work cut out for them. In a changing climate, changing times, Texans may welcome a few pointers.

Early 20th-century Texas painter Julian Onderdonk’s *A White Road in Late Afternoon*, 1921. This Hill Country landscape’s native grasses lie dormant until the next rain. Out in natural places in the Hills right now, they still do.

Some of us have modernized our homescape. Or we will after seeing how prolonged droughts force everything into hibernation or worse. We can and should reduce or eliminate thirsty turf grasses in favor of hardier native species. Here are some beauties around my Wimberley neighborhood; how are they coping in this drought and heat? A tip: Before reading ahead, read Chris Middleton’s article, Texas Natives Are Smarter Than You Think, in this August 2022 Magazine to know how plants use water and cope without it.

A 6” tufted clump grass mix ordered from Native American Seed was sown on a bare eroded slope in March of 2020. Unmown, it shades its roots in 2022’s triple-digit summer heat. With no water it stays soft, pale green, and strong-rooted. Longer Blue Gramma (Bouteloua gracilis) is a volunteer on another dry but more leaf-littered slope and is thriving in the heat. If left undisturbed to seed or run their rhizomes, our native prairie grasses will survive drought and restore our natural landscapes for us.

By August, the 2022 heat wave had been stressing even our most drought-hardy plants. They shut down, saving themselves by wilting or by browning out and shedding foliage. Their strategy—and it’s one of nature’s most precarious—is to reduce their transpirative surface area’s exposure to direct sun and hot dry air without going too long without photosynthesis—in other words, without starving to death. Again, for the astounding details be sure to read Chris Middleton’s article, Texas Natives Are Smarter Than You Think. Take a look at these iconic survivors:

Is it Texas native Sweet Almond Verbena (Alosia gratissima)? Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, Lesser Goldfinches, and even Cardinals jostle one another to feed on this delicately fragrant, palest lavender bloom. The bloom here and the leaf cluster under it are barely 6 inches; the leaves are mint-like but very soft. The whole bush is an erect, woody 6 feet tall. It is semi-evergreen and survived a weeklong freeze, this summer’s blasting heat, and almost no water. Deer never touch it. Whatever it is, yes please! This is your Hill Country Mystery for summer’s end. Good luck!

Let’s check out the Holly versus Mahonia confusion while we look at their local reaction to heat and drought.

Our other holly is Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria), a shrub or small evergreen tree with many smaller, less conspicuous red berries than have the many hollies worldwide. In this drought, Yaupon tends to dry back its many small inner branches to save itself, becoming more open crowned.

Texas Master Naturalists Lynne and Jim Weber beautifully photograph and compare the two Mahonias native to Central Texas. Take a moment and click to their blog.

But every berry of hundreds on that Agarita bush are gone. It’s about five years old—that’s at least two years into its ability to bear fruit. I can’t imagine any wildlife hungry enough to push deep into that mire of needle leaves. Could the immature berries have just shriveled and dropped off in this drought?

Are we starting to face the hard truth that, no matter how soil adapted and drought resistant plants may be, sooner or later all life needs water?

How about the Agaritas on your property—you must have them—did they bloom last May? And if so, do you have berries? Another mystery! Get out there—a little citizen science goes a long way.

And talk about drought resistance and berries! The champ has to be our native Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana). This small fruit tree needs a male tree nearby for every four females to have pollinators—the birds and the bees, butterflies and bats—pollinate its tiny sweet ivory blossoms. By late July these ½”-1” hard green persimmons are turning soft sticky black. They’ll pucker your mouth and stain any surface they touch, but the critters love them! The smooth white bark on these compact, slow-growing little trees is sculptural in our gardens if you can keep deer from scarring it.

We’ve looked at the effects of this year’s drought on plant species near our Central Texas Hill County home. We’ve seen thrivers and survivors. The effects we see are complicated by the fact that all these species were weakened by week-long freezes in each of the past two winters, only to face an early summer of no rain and record high heat. Even the nights were warm and dry. All living things need water. No matter how valiantly climate-adapted we are, eventually we need water. It will be grimly interesting to revisit these familiar plants as we move into fall and winter. And into the next decade.

Here are five more small trees we Hill country folk appreciate. Each are well adapted to this climate and are spectacular in the landscape. We don’t know how they or anything alive will adapt in years to come.

With predicted longer, drier, hotter summers, that landscape watering thing may become a fond memory. When our home builders still roll out water-hungry turf grass lawns—an imported affectation from dewy English country manors—and our nurseries push non-native, maladapted luxury hybrids and outright invasive planting choices, we’re being sold unrealistic expectations. To our continual chagrin.

Central Texas gardeners, homeowners, and landowners will never have the water and climate to support species that can’t take the heat—and the restricted water. Wisely, we’re looking now to our native plants, which have thrived here all along. We’re learning to cherish the native grasses, forbs, trees, and shrubs that are already here on our land, holding soil, attracting pollinators, feeding and sheltering wildlife. We urge nurserymen to raise and stock them for us. We’ll plant them in our smart modern, natural gardens. We and all of nature around us prosper in this beauty—our Texan birthright. A bonus is the effort, soil amendment, water, and money we save.

In this epic 2022 Texas drought, stay cool. Go native.

Totally Toads

It’s Blooming Hot