Native Plant Garden from Scratch in HOA: Kathleen Scott | Central Texas Gardener

“If we want butterflies and bees and hummingbirds and birds, we have to give them a place to breathe and a place to eat and a place to shelter,” Kathleen Scott told us when we headed to her New Braunfels garden in November 2022. An experienced gardener, Kathleen’s a Comal County Master Gardener and serves on the board of the New Braunfels Native Plant Society. Still, she started anew when she and husband Denny closed on their just-built house in November 2020. Their challenges: HOA lawn requirements of 75% front yard and 50% backyard. Deer live here, too, so Kathleen chose deer resistant plants in front. Her garden’s only a year old, but so beautifully illustrates planting for the future and all the creatures it nurtures already.
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[@lynneann9166]

Amazing she created a garden with insane HOA rules.

[@tabrown5226]

HOA ordinances needs to include native plant and pollinator gardens. And allow them to over take yards. Grass can be a hinderance, especially with our drought, which is being predicted to be worse over the next 5 years

[@ellenachavez6492]

How about getting RID of HOAs entirely! Then one can plant whatever they want!!!

[@radioactiverobin8245]

I'm in the home buying process and I hope I can make a garden as beautiful as hers!

[@TheGonebald]

I to am a native gardener in New Braunfels. I recently got my natural habitat certification using about 75% native or adaptive species of plants. As Kathleen mentioned once established they grow themselves with very little effort from me. I really enjoy watching my neighbors walk by point and comment. It gives me the opportunity to let them know they to can landscape using natives. I’m going to keep my eye out for her yard in my travels around the county. I know seeing her yard would provide me further inspiration.

[@CentralTexasGardener]

Would love to feature your garden on CTG if you'd like to email!

[@joelahnstein2281]

Given increasing drought conditions, HOAs gotta rethink their water hungry lawn requirements. Ground subsidence from groundwater use is a real concern so anything we can do to reduce water usage is beneficial. Your garden is absolutely beautiful.

[@kaviprash]

Beautiful garden and a even more beautiful narration! I could feel true love for plants. Absolutely motivating 😊

[@jimsngc]

Wow. Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden with us. We need more of this in every HOA in America! Much love.

[@caranwysong3065]

Very inspiring video. Love your garden. I'm just starting in Houston. I bought a Rock Rose and Turks cap today. I will watch this again.

[@awildapproach]

It's absolutely wonderful! Good on you for doing this in an HOA!!

[@bredear]

I love her beautiful native plants garden. Glad we can watch a video with an amazing pollinators garden even with the HOA limitations. Thanks.

[@pollinatorsteph]

You my dear, are the essence of motivation! Let's go!

[@salviabuckwheats7434]

Great video! Great presentation, pictures and captions, and the speaker has special talent that is usually lacking in most youtube presentations. She keeps moving through her topic at a good pace and with wonderful enthusiasm, is not nervous and not one UM!!! Do this and you will have joy! I believe her. This is what I want. I had this and more in California but then I sold the house and the buyers razed everything and built a porn studio. They ripped out the entire property, hundreds of blooming, self-sufficient natives attracting an amazing bunch of wildlife. They ripped out 80 ft trees also. Paved the entire lot, painted pink lace hearts across the gated front of the property and I guess proceeding to destroy anything else they can in the time they have in this world. But I digress. Here I am now in the Midwest - what a different ecosystem! With the wind of Doug Tallamy at my back, though I am old now, as long as there is breath there is hope. Nature's only hope. I shall start over. If I don't have enough time left, I hope the next human occupants will keep something of nature here and not be monsters. Anyway, videos like this urge me onward. Thank you.

[@robyn3349]

Thank you!

[@dyanalayng5507]

What a wonderful native plant garden. So many good ideas from a Master Gardener! 💖💕🇨🇦

[@veenawilsonpudukkaden1306]

💚💚💚Amazing ..really motivating video ..Thanks for sharing this beautiful garden 💚💚💚

[@CentralTexasGardener]

Thank YOU!

[@mustanghill1259]

I love seeing this beautiful garden and Kathleen's enthusiasm is inspirational. I also live in Comal County. I'm curious where she was able to source her native plants. I would love to plant the same.

[@CentralTexasGardener]

She got some from the Wildflower Center sales, from Native Plant Society sales, and even local nurseries. I'll check with her! So glad you liked it! Kathleen also does talks for the New Braunfels Native Plant Society, so you might want to check that out and learn about their plant sales, too!

[@CentralTexasGardener]

Also, here's the blog if you'd like to see it. It includes a link to Kathleen's plant list! www.centraltexasgardener.org/2023/06/native-plant-garden-from-scratch-in-hoa-kathleen-scott/

[@crystalschendel3770]

This is amazing! Such a wonderful garden. I started a butterfly garden this past spring, so this is big goals. Thank you for sharing ❤

[@carolg5800]

This garden is beautiful!

[@keelyjo2039]

Love this video! Going to be taking notes and making a list of all these gorgeous natives to look for!

[@CentralTexasGardener]

I have included Kathleen's plant list in the blog! www.centraltexasgardener.org/resource/kathleen-scott-native-plant-list/

[@keelyjo2039]

@@CentralTexasGardener THANKS!!

[@MoMoMack]

@@CentralTexasGardener this link should be in show notes! fantastic, thanks!

[@LaSuculentaCasaVerde]

😍😍😍 beautiful !! 🥰🥰🥰

[@CentralTexasGardener]

She is great!

[@wendymontie5660]

What a glorious garden! And as I was informed at a waterwise planting class, a 'weed' is a plant that is growing where you don't want it to be! So for my yard, that would be the 'lawn grass'! I've made a big dent in our lawn which was an expanse of St Aug when we bought it in '17. The only landscaping was a regiment of boxwoods right up at the house, and 2 older Sweet Gum trees. BORING. Not biodiverse in any way. Boxwoods were removed within the first year. Started learning more about natives/adapteds. Started with salvias and spireas and oxalis and such where the boxwoods were. Tried some plantings near the trees, but chose poorly. About 4 years ago I decided to created planted beds in freeform shapes around the trees. I've had better success and have been more deliberate about sun needs. I've expanded the beds, too. Less to mow, more options to grow. Over the last three freezes up here in north TX, I haven't protected a thing and while the jury is out at the moment for the week + long below freezing blast we got, everything came through the prior winters' snow/ice. Backyard is a disaster. The heat and a faulty sprinkler system wrecked the grass...but I'm covering up the worst of it with a wildflower garden, it's easy, it will be fun to look out at.

[@MickF04]

We're in Edwards Plateau, and it's a rocky mess. The front yard had some soil built up over the caliche/limestone/clay (little amount) during the house build. Over the course of the last four years we have amended the shrub/perennial bed several times, particularly when we tried new plants. We now have a workable area in the front where I can grow anything native and most hardy adaptable plants. The backyard (mainly 70' wide and 32' deep) is all Bermuda grass. If I try to drive a metal stake into the ground, I encounter resistance within 1-2'' into the grass. I would love to turn the back half into a shrub and perennial bed, but this looks like a huge challenge, particularly since the lot slopes downward from back to front on the lot. Great for drainage around and away from the house foundation, but not so good for retaining any added or amended soil.

[@rosee1776]

Amazing!

[@kasenhutton]

This is sooooo helpful like a little blueprint for starting to transform our yard into a native garden. I think it'd be particularly helpful (just.a video idea) to talk on how to stagger the plantings so that there is always something blooming in spring/summer/fall etc... or with natives you don't really need to do that? That's what confuses me most, lol.

[@francesm.5561]

I love this 🎉💜

[@ericpierce3660]

Such an inspirational video! Do you know if there are shorter varieties of mist flower? All the ones I see online are 6ft tall and bloom very sparsely, but hers look about 3ft at most, and are completely covered in blooms.

[@savygirl818]

I'm so jealous. Wish I could do this but the iguanas make it really difficult! They're pesky and persistant 😥

[@donnajoy6951]

Could you give an update on the garden since we had a drought and temp up to 110 here in DFW - gonna add some of the plants she provided in my garden this fall/winter/spring

[@cindymendoza6604]

Can someone help with information how to be certified in a Houston? I have so many Turk’s cap in my front lawn and the city of Houston have me a violation notice that I need to cut my weeds/ native plants.

[@New-Hat-Gardening]

Question: If you are planting natives do you really need irrigation? Isn’t that defeating the purpose of water conservation?

[@RVBadlands2015]

Can you get any of these plants in seeds.

[@BlancaGarcia-wv7rw]

are these wild flowers and wild plants?

[@CentralTexasGardener]

Some are considered "wildflowers." Most are native plants: perennials, some annuals, groundcovers, grasses, and trees.