Travel Story--Central Texas in April

I just returned from a tour of part of Texas with the American Horticultural Society. We went to public and private gardens, museums, and parks where wildflowers were blooming. I wore myself out dashing between wonderful plants. 

hill country rain lilies, Cooperia pediculata

For context, at my home in Colorado, there has been almost no moisture this spring and our frost-free date is in early May, so although some plants are growing and flowering, between the drought and the threat of cold, they are small and scattered. Texas was intensely green and plants that won't flower for me until mid June were in full bloom, bigger than they get even in a good Colorado year! We went to Dallas, Fort Worth, and Austin, places with a rainfall of 34-41" on average--compare 14" where I live--so of course it was green and the trees were huge! But just because I know its partly a function of climate doesn't mean I didn't revel in the experience. So green with so many beautiful flowers!

foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea 

an ancient magnolia: note the size
of the lowest lateral branches!

Texas is a very large state with a lot of climate variation. Dallas-Fort Worth to Austin is in the region where the prairies of the center of North America extended southward, so I knew many of the native plants from working in Nebraska and Colorado prairies. Not the exact species, those mainly had changed, but those plants generally. And with its warmer climate and varied soils, Texas has more different species than farther north on the plains. So a nice mix of familiar and unfamiliar for me.

One plant I met for the first time, though, was the hill country rain lily (Cooperia pediculata, lily family, Liliaceae). See the first photo in this post. Rain lilies are found across the southern U.S. The hill country rain lily is native only to Texas. Not only that, it lies dormant until it gets enough rain, then very quickly grows its buds and flowers. After a dry fall and winter, the area had had a good rain about a week before I was there, so there were lots of rain lilies, in native areas but also wherever people had planted them simply because they liked them. Very, very cool to see them. 

And it was just the right time of year for blanket flower, Gaillardia pulchella, called firewheel in Texas and Indian blanket by the USDA plants database (sunflower family, Asteraceae). It is an annual (or a short-lived perennial) with a range across much of North America. It has naturalized in the East where it probably wasn't native. Where I live they are yellow with a little red, in Dallas, Austin, and the Texas hill country roadsides, they were almost entirely red with dark red centers and just a touch of yellow on the tips of the petals: 

The red flowers are blankflowers, Gaillardia pulchella

How beautiful!

And here is trumpet creeper, Campsis radicans (catalpa family Bignoniaceae). The trumpet creeper in my yard has not yet leafed out and has never had that dense a flush of flowers. A vine native to both Texas and Colorado, it can be aggressive but the flowers are gorgeous and very attractive to hummingbirds. 

trellis covered in flowering trumpet creeper,
Campsis radicans, at the Dallas Arboretum 

But I didn't admire just natives. This very pretty flowerbed caught my eye. 

begonias and small euphorbia (likely Euphorbia hypericiflora)

and this gracious walkway (Dallas Arboretum)

of course a magnolia flower

magnolia, probably Magnolia grandiflora
(magnolia family, Magnoliaceae)

(oops, Magnolia grandiflora is native to eastern Texas. Some American native plants are so beloved and widely planted it is easy to forget they are "native wildflowers". )

and a big stand of corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas, poppy family, Papaveraceae), native to Europe.

corn poppies, Papaver rhoeas at Wildseed Farms

And beyond plants

 The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden was just about to open an exhibit of Hunt Slonem, "Bunnies, Birds and Butterflies" so we could see some of the installations. They were marvelous! (The exhibit will run until September.)

Peeking at the Hunt Slonem Bunnies, Birds and Butterflies
exhibit, Dallas Arboretum

Old and new Dallas

Austin skyline

Bridge in the Texas hill country

And, to make the contrast clearer, I came back to a snowstorm across the Denver area. A spring storm, falling and quickly melting, the fallen snow gone by late afternoon. But still...from fields of flowers in Texas to blowing snow in Denver, 800 miles north. 

Snow along highway north of Denver, April 17, 2026

This quick summary omits a lot, I will say more in future posts. For example, promoting natives and conserving water are both well-developed in Texas and of great interest to me on the dry end of the Great Plains. And I have lots of pretty plant photos. 

I had wanted to see that part of Texas for years. It was as colorful as I expected. I saw lots of native plants related to the ones I know and also lots of Texas natives I did not know. And, everywhere, diverse varieties of familiar garden plants plus tropical and subtropical plants that I rarely see growing outdoors, in full bloom because, apparently, April is late spring in this part of Texas, not early spring. It is a marvelous place and I had an excellent visit. 

Comments and corrections welcome. 

References

Delong-Amaya, A. 2025. The Texas Native Plant Primer. Timber Press, Portland, OR. 

checking names and ranges: 

Flora of North America link

Lady Brid Johnson Wildflower Center plant list link

USDA plants data base link

Links to places mentioned

American Horticultural Society link

Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, Dallas, Texas link 

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, Texas  link

Wildseed Farms, Fredericksburg, Texas  link

Also check out (I couldn't include pictures of everything...)

BRIT - Botanical Resarch Insitute of Texas, Fort Worth Texas link

Fort Worth Botanical Garden link

The excellent tour was arranged by International Seminar Design, Inc., Washington, D.C. link 

About tours: Texas is central in the U.S. so driving seems reasonable, but to and within Texas the distances are long. The tour did the planning for me--very helpful--and provided local experts to answer my many questions. Many excellent organizations arrange tours of great places that I could have driven to. I have always been pleased with the experiences tours add. 

Kathy Keeler, A Wandering Botanist 
More at awanderingbotanist.com
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This trip reminded me of some of my experiences visiting central South America--excitement over the familiar and the unfamiliar, wonderful plants and animals, spectacular vistas. I wrote a novel using that experience, set in 1630 when the Americas were not well known, so my heroine could be surprised by all kinds of things.  I Have Seen Marvels. Available on Amazon link or from me.