Georgia O’Keefe once said, “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment.” And, to help us all have more moments, our Inaugural Native Flower Patch was planted by kids of all ages from the nearby community during a Flashlight Seed Fling on December 7, 2023. It will be exciting to watch it grow and flourish. The Native Flower Patch is now considered a “No Mow Zone”. This means that the City of Houston will not mow the area from January until July yearly so that the flowers can grow. These flowers will not only grow here, they will create seeds for the next generation of the Native Flower Patch. When mowed in July, the mowers will naturally disperse the seeds and plant material around the patch and keep trees from growing in place of the flowers. Then, next year, the seeds will spring to life and begin growing to create more flowers.

Please do not walk through the flowers as they grow. Together with the City of Houston, we have created walking spaces around the Native Flower Patch for your convenience. There are many benefits of having this Native Flower Patch including providing nectar for birds, butterflies, and bees. It also provides native host plants for caterpillars, encouraging the growth of native species. As a bonus, our native flower patch will reduce the cost of maintenance, labor, and water, not to mention that there will be fewer gas emissions from mowing.

Photo by Robert Delgado. Monarch at TLCNP.

The flower seeds used to create this patch include American Basket Flower, Black-eyed Susan, Clasping Coneflower, Indian Blanket, Lemon Mint, Partridge Pea, Plains Coreopsis, Texas Bluebonnet, Showy Primrose and Upright Prairie Coneflower.

The Nature Preserve is about so much more than our trees. It is a place of refuge in our busy urban environment for wildlife as well as people. Please be kind when you visit, realizing that you are a visitor to our urban animals’ homes, and use our designated paths and trails preserves this thoughtfully created space for generations to come. Please stay on the paths (and keep your dogs on-leash and on the paths with you at all times) in an effort to foster more livable spaces for our plants and animals. It is only by working together to preserve our amazing piece of urban nature that we will have our “moments” with flowers, trees, birds, butterflies, and our neighbors.