Welcome to Texas. There are a lot of people on this forum who live in your area and can tell you what plants and trees thrive in your area. I am sure they will chime in soon. But I can send you to Texas Superstar Plants in the mean time to check out and give you some ideas.

Happy Gardening!

Sam

Here is a link that might be useful: Texas Superstar Plants

This is also an excellent site for plants that do well here in Texas. Even though the stars show North Central and West Texas, most do well in all parts of the state. There is excellent information here on water conservation, plant selection, etc.

If you like roses, check out the EarthKind Rose selection - those roses trial tested by TAMU extension across the state to be the most disease resistant and prolific bloomers. http://earthkindroses.tamu.edu/EKroses.html

Here is a link that might be useful: Texas Smartscape

Hi Patty cakes, Welcome to the GW and to Texas.

One of the first thing to know is the soil type and getting a sample done to see what it may needs for the plants you choose.
Late June, July and August is not a good time to plant the heat is hard on newly planted plants, but it's a great time to make plans get beds ready for fall planting and if your planning on planting trees fall is the very best time to plant them. Wildflowers like blue bonnets you start in the fall. Someone nearly always post when it's time to plant them. They have maroons ones too. They have them along highway 114.
One advise that I like to give is don't go to home depot or lowes unless you know what your looking for. If your into native plants it's best to go to local nursery that only carries native plants if thats what your looking for.

It would help us to know what you know in gardening.

Barb

Sam and Denise, thank you for the sites! That's an excellent start for someone like me who is so unfamiliar with ANY of the native plants. I'm going over to do a little reading as soon as I finish here.

Barb, my daughter lives in the area i'll be moving to and the soil seems to have a lot of clay. I know i'll need to add additional nutrients to keep roots from becoming water logged. I don't consider myself a horticulturist, but have had gardens in the past, mainly IL~i'm familiar with that awful humidity! I enjoy gardening, and with that in mind, know i'll make mistakes, but also learn what likes the heat and what doesn't. Trial and error is sometimes the only way to learn since some things are not always a sure bet, such as plants. I just hope I don't waste too much money on my 'experimentation'. I *definitely* won't be buying from the big box stores, only local nurseries since they always give the right advice. Maroon Bluebonnets? I can't wait to see them.

As for what I know about gardening, just that I love digging in the earth and watching what i've planted come to life, and continue coming back up each year. Or watching a tree go from a sapling to a *real* tree. I find it challenging. Thank you for your suggestions. ;o)

Patty cakes, welcome, hope we'll be seeing a lot of you on here. I have a daughter living in Austin, also, and I grew up 50 miles east of there.... beautiful area !!

Welcome from the other "Patecake". Growing here is much like growing in the Inland Empire. Lots of hot and dry summer.

Welcome to Austin! I agree that the Texas Superstar plants are all great to work with. Here is another site put together by the city of Austin that is specific to our area. You can pick up a nice little booklet with this info for free at many nurseries around town, but this will have to do for now.

Chrissy

Here is a link that might be useful: Grow Green plant list

Patty_cakes, welcome to Texas. Great state, great people. But I must say, gardeing can be a bit of a challenge. But the good news is, you can find the answer to almost any issue right here on Gardenweb.

With a bit of fore-thought, you'll be able to create almost any type of garden you'd like. Everything from a desert theme xerospape to a tropical theme. In my case, I like tropicals, so that's what I grow.

I moved to Texas last year and the biggest chalenges I found have been the dense clay/caliche soils and intense summer heat.

The soil is so poor in my yard, the whole city really, that I've developed a system. I buy $1 bags of cheap Texas soil from Home Depot and have a pile of rich compost that I had delivered. When it's time to plant, I dig out a good sized hole, mix the dirt and compost in equal portions, dump it in the hole and plant. The soil that I dug out of the hole, I simply get rid of. Any of that clay left will impede root growth, so it all goes in the dumpster.

As for the Texas heat, plants in good soil stand the best chance of survival. Good soil and top dressing with mulch to keep the moisture in and help keep weeds down is the way to go.

In the end you want a fairly low maintanence garden that doesn't need dailly attention and water.

But you're really starting off the right way. I started my garden here before I knew about this forum and the results were very poor. Dicouraging really.

Last thing I will mention, my favorite plant for Texas,,,, the canna. Everybodies got their own and they are all good. But if that's something you might like to try, let me know and I'd be happy to send some seeds out.

Hi there--you will love gardening in Austin... there are so many cool local nurseries and resources that are really tailored to our climate and especially native plants. We are very blessed to have so many unique places to buy garden things... and the people who work at the locally-based nurseries here are always very helpful about what will work or not work. And of course the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center is here, which is really a national treasure. It has both wild and formal wildflower and native plant gardens and is a great way to see the different seasons of growth in this area (or the seasons of wildflower bloom in TX).

The cool thing about Austin is that it pretty much sits on a fault line which divides it into two completely different climates... types of soils... there are challenges and joys in both--I garden on the Austin clay. It can actually be quite fertile.. and the right native plants grow in it. It just often needs amendments to get it more 'plantable' and less dense. I think what's really hard about it is that it's hard to dig when it's dry, but lots of plants and trees are perfectly happy in the clay, even some of my roses.

When you get here look for The Garden Guide for Austin - which is put together by the county gardeners and has a great planting schedule for plants we can grow here as well as suggested resources.... (there's stuff on wildflowers in there, too).

Also, most nurseries here carry a small booklet called "Grow Green" which is a very good start to what native and adapted plants do well here. Cseim mentioned it above, and you can download or search this guide from the city's website: Grow Green

have fun discovering!

Patty Cake,
You have moved to a great spot for gardening--11 months a year (we generally give up in January, read seed catalogs, plan, and recuperate!). By all means get the Grow Green booklet as soon as you hit Austin. It is a wonderful resource. Also, you have the Travis County Master Gardeners--another great resource. They can be contacted through the Travis County Extension Service. Texas A&M (despite the jokes) is also helpful--their website at aggiehorticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/earthkind/ekgarden14.html has a spring and fall planting guide for vegetables.
For roses, certainly consider the earthkind roses, also David Austin roses, and the Knockout series. Roses WILL grow in Texas!
You also have Zilker Gardens, a botanical park in Austin with knowledgeable staff and a great place to see and sniff plants.
Herbs simply love Texas--they thrive in heat, poor soil and neglect. We have cool season herbs (parsley, cilantro among others) and hot season herbs (basil, winter savory, oregano, etc.).
You are going to have such a good time gardening in Texas! Don't worry about the occasional failure--it happens to all of us and learning is part of the joy of gardening.

Hi and early-welcome to the area! Texas is an interesting state to garden in. We really have two growing seasons, in the spring and in the fall, separated by mild winters and scorching summers. So when you come here in the summer, I'd advise only planting things that have a reputation for severe drought survival, like lantana and moss rose.

But a few months later, you get the fall, and that's a great time to plant! So you could use the summer to plan, learn and get ready, and be all set when it's time to really get cracking!

Welcome again, and good luck on your move!