June Perennials for Texas

June Blooming Texas Perennials

Purple Cone Flower and Salvia Greggii both June blooming perennials in Texas.

June blooming perennials

Sedums Texas Perennial

Preparing the Soil

Preparing and augmenting your Texas soil for landscaping success.	Preparing and augmenting your Texas soil for landscaping success.
Retaining your Texas soil for landscaping success.	Soil ready for new plants. Read more about dwarf boxwoods in garden design below.

With Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA I would kindly and respectfully ask that you join me in preserving the health of our planet and recognize the reality and impact of climate change for the next generations. We have had non-stop earthquakes in Dallas since fracking began here and in Oklahoma. We need a reality based EPA and a strong proponent for our planet.

Support the Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org/

Canna lilies in the center, yellow day lilies and wandering Jew on each end. Dusty Miller returns in Texas and acts as a perennial (usually, the silver plant).

Canna Lillies and Day Lillies Early June Texas with Knock Out Rose with Rose Rosette Disease

Dwarf purple leaved canna lilies, Stella D’oro day lilies, Wandering Jew, Mealy Sage, Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ or Maiden Grass, Dusty Miller with two Knockout Roses. The rose in the left of the image with the ‘witches broom’ elongated ruby red growth has Rose Rosette disease.

Day lilies and Canna lilies, Mealy Blue Sage, shrub roses, Maiden Grass and Wandering Jew. Very unfortunately what you see in the rose on the left images is Rose Rosette disease with those red “witches brooms” popping out from the rose bush. That rose needs to be pulled out and throw away in a sealed garbage bag. Rose Rosette disease is a virus carried by wingless mites on the wind.

Dessert Willow blooming with the Texas Vitex tree and Agave

Persian Shield with barberry and Japanese Maple.

Japanese Maple and Cone Flower Perennials. A common landscaping feature in Dallas are the rocks as shown above with rug juniper. Unfortunately, in Texas geraniums stop blooming around the Fourth of July. Coneflowers, however, have a long bloom period and those coneflowers look very healthy!

Texas Perennials: The predominant perennials here are the pink Pentstemons also known as Beardstongue. That’s such an awful name, how do they come up with them? These are hardy and have a long bloom time and come in multiple colors though deep pink is the most common.

Oxalis Articulata or Pink Wood Sorrel. This is an old fashioned perennial but I love it. It can get leggy in August but I just weed eat it back and enjoy it again. It is great to mix with Purple Shamrock as well.

If that were my garden (which it is not) I would take my little pick axe, dig a hole, amend it with some organic matter, add watering crystals and Osmocote and plant purple shamrock and let the two mix, maybe even taking over the entire area someday!

Oxalis and purple shamrock mixing it up

Thyme a Perennial for Container Gardening

Thyme. Perennials in containers in Texas landscape design. This is very popular and comes back every year. Plus, wonderful for cooking!

Thyme perennial. Container Garden in Dallas Landscape Design. “Rule of Three.”

Agave. Perennials in container with Mealy Blue Sage in the background. The Hibiscus is not a perennial in Texas landscape design. That looks like dwarf boxwood, yet again. You see that in many professional landscape designs in Texas.

Agave. Perennials in containers in Texas landscape design.

You can see the Lantana spread as the season progresses.

Spider Lilies and Wood Fern will come back. You can dig up your Caladium bulbs and replant them. That is the Beach Spider Lily, Hymenocallis littoralis.

Acanthanthus, Striking Texas Perennial

Acanthus from Corinth, Greece, a Texas Perennial. Red Tansy also an important Texas Perennial.

Large-Green-Spikey-Leafed-Plants-Raised-Bed-Gardening-Texas-Landscape-Design (1 of 1)

Acanthus a perennial from Greece and Red Tansy an important Texas Perennial. Acanthus is the leaf carved at the top of Corinthian columns.

Here are Corinthian Columns topped with Acanthus leaves. Planted with native grasses, day lilies, live oaks.

A closer look at the Corinthian Columns topped with Acanthus leaves.

Texas Perennial Acanthus – Found in Grecian Corinthian Columns

Two Texas Perennials, Thyme and Large Lambs Ear

Dwarf Box Woods and Layering

Dwarf box woods are a key component of popular landscape technique of ‘layering’ in the DFW area. Buxus sinicavar insularis is considered to be the hardiest of the dwarf boxwoods. See the Boxwood Society website for more information here. If deer are a problem for you, and you most likely already know this but Boxwood put off an odor that deer do not like. However, deer are not a problem in Highland Park that I have heard.

The blue flower is Agapanthus (African lily) which are summer-flowering perennial plants, grown for their showy flowers, commonly in shades of blue and purple, but also white and pink. Agapanthus comes from the Greek word, “love.”

Professional landscapers “layer”. Here you see two rows of shrubs, the fern and annuals. Layering generally requires little more effort once the layers are established, other than trimming the shrub hedges roughly once a month for six months. The water and fertilizer requirements are the same.

More of the fern and agapanthus. Here you see the very popular landscape technique of ‘layering.’

Speaking of lilies … which are bulbs and not perennials, consider the Amaryllis! Lilies are so incredibly easy and make such a statement, brief though it is.

Amaryllis Lilies are a bulb not a perennial but they come back every year and do incredibly well in Texas Landscape design. Behind the lilies you can see Salvia Greggii and a white Beardstongue. Way in the back, the dark purple is Midnight Salvia …

Hostas

Boxwood blight (Cylindrocladium buxicola) can be a problem. This is a fungal disease for which there is no cure. Brown spots appear on leaves until the entire leaf turns light brown and dies.

Hostas, good combination with ferns for shade garden perennials. See ferns in Texas. In the background is spreading yew, the dark green shrub and variegated pittosporum. These are my two favorite shrubs. They work well with hostas.

French Hydrangea

Hydrangeas and fern, classic shade garden perennial combination. Read more on French Hydrangeas Here. French Hydrangeas begin blooming almost exactly when Oak Leaf Hydrangeas begin to fade.

Mophead or French Hydrangea blooms just before Oak Leaf Hydrangea. Here hydrangeas are seen with geraniums.

Pink Mophead Hydrangea

Mophead or French Hydrangea blooms just before Oak Leaf Hydrangea. Ferns are often planted with hydrangeas because the prefer the same environment plus they just look pretty together. Be careful about woodfern. They grow via underground rhyzomes and can become invasive.

Rudbekia

Texas Lavender Vitex Tree / Shrub

Texas Lavender Vitex Read more here …

Russian Sage, the feathery blue plant above blooms with the Texas Vitex Tree. This is a good combination.

Vitex_Tree_Purple_Flower_Spikes_Texas_Lee_Ann_TOrrans-4

Texas Lilac Vitex Tree – A Texas Superstar! TREAT THIS TREE LIKE A PERENNIAL. Cut it down in the fall and it will come back six feet the next year. I know, that’s hard but that’s the way it is!!! Above, the large ‘bush’ in the background is a Texas Lilac Vitex Tree. Before it is Mealy Blue Sage. The orange and yellow plant, lantana, also comes in yellow and pink – which might work better. This is a perennial. To have a Vitex Tree rebloom you must cut off the former blooms. Cutting it back helps to reach to top blooms.