Prickly Pair RGV

Native plants and birdwatching go hand in hand! Make sure to check out the native plant selection available at next time you're going by to pick up bird-feeding supplies, bird baths, or other birding merchanise. They now have some of the drought-tolerant plants we grew in stock, including Purple Threeawn (Aristida purpurea), Coastal Germander (Teucrium cubense), Prairie Coneflower (Ratibida columnifera), and Frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), among many other native species grown by other local vendors. You'll see them out in front of the store!

We also have 3-4 foot tall Anacahuita (Cordia boissieri) available. These trees typically get to be 15 to 25 feet tall and have abundant white flowers. They provide good shade and are attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds.

Visit our online store to see what we've got in stock! We can deliver the plants right to your door, or you can get in touch with us to schedule when you'd like to come pick them up.

We've added some new plants - and returning favorites - to the online store!

Coastal Germander (Teucrium cubense) is a lovely herbaceous plant in the Mint family, with delicate flowers that are attractive to native bees.

Tiny Tim (Thymophylla sp.) are great for potted plant arrangements or for adding a pop of color to a xeriscape. Excellent for small pollinators.

Sleepy Walther (Waltheria indica) is a fantastic pollinator resource, blooming with its petite yellow flowers much of the year.

Purple Threeawn (Aristida purpurea) is a lovely native bunch grass that blows beautifully in the South Texas breeze. The 5th photo shows them with their flowering heads.

All of these species have low to very low water requirements, making them excellent candidates for a water-smart garden. When purchasing, we can either deliver them right to your doorstep, or you can arrange pick-up at our nursery along Big 5 Road, north of Monte Christo.

And we've got a bunch of the first ranked lawn alternative in stock!

Bermuda grass and Texas summer drought were never a great match. These native plants are what actually belongs here.

Frogfruit is back in stock! We offer frogfruit in quart pots that are easy to plant for your lawn replacement projects. We offer a bulk rate of $6 per plant for orders of 20 or more - email us prior to purchase so we can get you the discounted price. For larger scale orders of 100 or more plants, please get in touch with us.

It's probably well past time for us to introduce this plant. White Lippia (also called Bushy Lippia) is a superstar of our native edible garden, helping form a naturalistic hedge in our front yard. It's also one of the best pollinator plants in our garden - during the City Nature Challenge, it was absolutely buzzing with leafcutter bees, alpine bees, honey bees, and a variety of small butterflies.

White Lippia is also a South Texas Specialty Species, with most of its distrubution south of us in Mexico, Central America, and into South America. It's leaves are great to use in the kitchen, making tasty teas and to flavor foods - apparently it's an ingredient in mole sauces in Oaxaca, Mexico, and a relative is used in Ethiopian cuisine.

We have this plant available in two forms: as live plants in 1-gallon pots and dried herb packets that you can make into teas or use for cooking. Visit our website to order online!

One of the first things we did after moving into our home was remove about 300 square feet of lawn to grow a wildflower patch. It wasn't just because we like wildflowers for their beauty, or to reduce our landscape's water use, but also to create a habitat for wildlife.

Just from incidental observations as we spend time in the garden, we've already documented more than 70 species using the roughly 30 foot by 10 foot space so far this year. There are herbivores who eat the leaves, pollinators drinking nectar and collecting pollen, predators eating insects, detritivores helping to decompose plant materials - a whole little ecosystem right outside our door.

This sort of wildflower patch also doesn't take much work to maintain after the intial site preparation. Aside from one larger cut-back a year in late summer, it's mostly just light trimming to keep the pathway clear, a little supplemental water to get seed germination (if we don't get timely rain), and occasional weeding to keep the plant community balanced.

We love incorporating wildflowers into our designs, so if you're looking to start your own wildflower patch, just let us know! The summer months are a great time to prepare your site for fall planting.

If you've driven around the RGV recently, you've likely seen a small tree with abundant white blooms in yards, along roadsides, and out in the Tamaulipan Mesquital. This is the Anacahuita (Cordia boissieri), and it is one of the most popular native trees used in landscaping due to their size, drought-resilience, and abundance of flowers. It's also a South Texas specialty tree, only found in South Texas and into Mexico.

This tree is a nectar plant for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. It's also the host plant to one of our favorite insects - the Wild Olive Tortoise Beetle! We purposefully introduced some of these beetles to the Anacahuitas in our yard and love finding them on the trees' broad leaves.

We have Anacahuita available in 3-gallon pot size on our website:
https://prickly-pair-rgv.com/shop

We just added new native plants to our inventory! They range from majestic deciduous trees to colorful wildflowers and in-between. If you're looking to diversify your yard this spring - before our typical hot RGV summer sets in - now is the time to get planting.

prickly-pair-rgv.com/shop

We had lots of fun at the event today on South Padre Island! We brought a selection of native plants, mesquite beer bread, and herbal teas. It was a great community-building event, and it was really cool to see all the work the chapter is doing at the facility next door to the birding and nature center.