Search

Find a Plant

Explore the variety of native and adapted plants for your corner of Texas — whether you’re looking for color, shade, a home for wildlife or just never want to mow again.

  • Plant Search
  • Native to
  • Plant Type
  • Plant Features
  • Caveats
  • Sunlight Requirements
  • Water Requirement
  • Soil Types
  • Attracts Wildlife
  • Flower Color
  • Seasonal Star
Canby red oak leaves and trunk
Sierra Oak

A graceful Mexican oak used as a fast-growing semi-evergreen in central Texas.

Shin oak leaves at Wimberly, Texas
White Shin Oak

A thicket-forming small Hill Country oak, usually multi-trunked.

Loquat Oak
A fast-growing, evergreen Mexican red oak.
Texas Red Oak

A fast-grower when young, under optimal conditions.

Monterrey Oak
A fast-growing southwestern oak considered resistant to oak wilt.
Escarpment Live Oak

The most durable and adaptable oak for south-central Texas.

Lacey Oak

An extremely drought-tolerant (but slow growing) small oak.

Post oak in Fredericksburg, Texas.
Post Oak

A fairly compact oak with a rounded crown.

Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa)
Bur Oak
A large-growing oak with fist-sized acorns. Well-adapted to clay soils.
Chinquapin Oak
Adaptable to any site except very heavy clay soils.
Anaqua
The Sandpaper Tree: a South Texas specialty.
Ballmoss leaves.
Ball Moss
Ball moss lives in tree branches and feasts on morning dew: not a parasite, but an epiphyte.
Pearl Milkweed Vine

An attractive vine with heart-shaped leaves and exquisite flowers.

Japanese plum is one of the earliest fruits of the year in San Antonio.
Loquat

Winter blooms, fragrant flowers, and delicious fruit.

Texas Milkweed
Great milkweed for a shady pollinator garden.
Mexican honeysuckle flowers.
Mexican Honeysuckle

A hardy semi-evergreen perennial that performs well in dappled shade.

Japanese Yew
An evergreen accent for partial shade.
Cast-iron plant.
Cast-Iron Plant
Aspidistra's tough, leathery leaves lend tropical lushness to deep dark shade.
Asiatic Jasmine
Evergreen, adaptable, and a classic alternative for grass in shade.
Spider Plant
A perennial houseplant. Provides a tropical effect when used as a shade groundcover.
Scarlet sage leaves and flowers.
Scarlet Sage
A tough native salvia for the shade garden.
Liriope
An evergreen perennial with strappy dark green foliage.
Pittosporum leaves and flowers.
Pittosporum
Big, versatile. and well suited for dappled shade.
Arizona Cypress
A West Texas evergreen, and a fast-growing anchor for the watersaver landscape.
Magnolia

A beautiful native tree, well-suited to deep coastal and riparian soils. Not recommended for thin hill country soils.

Crape Myrtle
"One hundred days of red."
Horseherb
A native, low-maintenance turfgrass substitute.
Bermuda Grass

A very tough drought-tolerant turf grass suited for full sun.

St. Augustine Grass

A dense turfgrass for sites with some shade; expect extra watering if you grow it in the sun.

Coma
Like a little live oak with thorns, and big fragrance in bloom.
Texas Rain Lily

A delightful native wildflower, appearing as if by magic after soaking summer rains.

Gray Shrub Sage
A compact and very xeric salvia, with electric blue flowers all season long.
Closeup of distinctive wide leaf blade on southwestern bristlegrass
Southwestern Bristlegrass

A wild bunch grass with a solitary inflorescense of bristly spikes at the end of its long stems.

Split-leaf Philodendron

Dramatic leathery leaves provide a tropical effect for the shaded patio.

Drummond's ruellia flower and leaf
Drummond's Wild Petunia

A large-leaved local ruellia, suitable as an informal groundcover in woodland shade.

Poison ivy "leaves of three"
Poison Ivy

Not recommended, but included to assist with identification.