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Yard of the Month

The October Yard of the Month is awarded to Marty Webb. Congratulations, Marty! And thank you for helping to make Woodside beautiful!

Marty Webb and her husband Gene, who died in 2018, have been intentionally gardening for year round color for over 30 years on their corner of Sun Valley and Woodmeadow, using mainly native plants. For many years their easements were a flood of colorful wildflowers in the spring; bluebonnets, coreopsis, poppy mallow and evening primrose still delight in all the garden beds.

A decades long passion to create habitat for Monarch butterflies morphed this year into eliminating tropical milkweed and instead learning to propagate native milkweed. (Please see “Joys of Butterfly Gardening” on Facebook for superb information.) Now dozens of host and pollinator plants attract many different butterflies of SE Texas. Some of the yard’s favorites are:

• Trees: red bay, wild black cherry, sassafras, wafer ash, Hercules Club
• Bushes and shrubs: milkweed, spicebush, powderpuff, ironweed, Turk’s cap, Texas lantana, and cassia, duranta, lorapetalum, firespike, jatropha, plumbago, Texas sage, hamelia, clerodendrum, panama rose, abelia, four o’clock, cherry Barbados, shrimp plant, Goldstar Esperanza, Scarlet firebush, Showers of Gold, Texas star hibiscus,
• Flowers: snapdragon, zinnia, pavonia, tithonia, coneflower, salvia, blue mist, bulbine, bee balm, cat’s whiskers, verbena, abelmoschus, canna lily, ruellia, Mexican heather, guara, rudbeckia, sunflower
• Vines: passion vine, partridge pea vine, hyacinth bean
• Herbs: dill, parsley, fennel and rue.

This rich habitat has attracted not only Monarch butterflies but also black swallowtail, spicebush swallowtail and giant swallowtail. Gulf fritillaries devour the passion vine and sulphurs and skippers can be seen almost every day. Marty is on the lookout for American lady, Painted lady, red-spotted purple, Texas crescent and buckeye butterflies. They’re sure to come, she says!

Marty loves carrying on Gene’s legacy of generously sharing seeds and clippings with neighbors eager to enhance their own native gardens. She hopes you’ll stop by when you see her outside in her beloved flower beds at 3531 Sun Valley.

 

Yard of the Month is graciously sponsored by: