As its name implies, the Mexica Petunia comes from south of the border and is a beautiful addition to a flowering backyard retreat. It is not a real petunia, but its flower looks like one. As a hardy perennial that is low maintenance and drought resistant, Mexican petunias are one of several desert plants that are recommended for warm, dry climates. Its flower petals are most commonly a vibrant violet color, but they can also be pink or white. Like daylilies, they only bloom once a day, but continuously bloom throughout the summer.

Purple Heart, native to Mexico, is a trailing, tender perennial with beautiful silvery, purple stems and violet-purple leaves that are long and oval shaped and produces delicate pink flowers in the spring and summer. It is mainly grown for its foliage as its leaves can reach about 7 inches in length and can reach a height of 1 to 1 ½ feet tall. Purple heart is wonderful for planting in pots or hanging baskets, and also serves very well as a ground cover.

A favorite for growing with kids, lamb’s ear plant makes attractive addition in nearly any garden setting. This easy-care perennial has velvety soft, wooly evergreen leaves that are silver to gray-green in color. The foliage is also similar in shape to that of a real lamb’s ears, hence its name. If left to bloom in summer, lamb’s ear will produce spikes of pink to purple colored flowers too. In addition to enjoying its attractive, fuzzy foliage, the leaves can be used as a "band-aid" of sorts for healing wounds and in helping painful bee stings.

With its silvery-green foliage and upright fragrant spikes of tiny, delicate flowers, Lavender, an herb with many culinary uses, also makes a stunning addition to gardens, pots, containers and borders while providing beautiful sweeps of color from early summer into fall. It also makes a wonderful addition to floral arrangements for your home both for its color and fragrance as well as sachets and potpourri. With its Mediterranean origin, lavender loves the blazing hot sun and dry soil and can be grown in gardens or pots and containers.

Named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow, irises bring color to the garden in spring and summer. With many different types and colors available, ranging from white to almost black but most common in shades of lavender, purple, white and yellow, there is an iris for nearly every garden. The most common is the bearded variety, named so because of the prominent beard of white in the center of the petal. Iris blossoms make spectacular additions to any bed as well as borders and they make a wonderful contrast to many perennials. Mix several varieties that will provide blooms from early spring through summer. An added bonus is that irises are great attractors of hummingbirds and butterflies.

With dramatic foliage ranging from green to bronze and burgundy to variegated and iris like, long-lasting, showy flowers in red, orange, yellow, pink and cream, canna lilies, or more commonly referred to simply as cannas, are an impressive sight. The sheer size of cannas makes them an excellent choice to add to the background of large planting beds where they can be blended with other large-scale plants. Cannas also work very well in large containers with a mixture of plants where they can serve as the centerpiece for the other plants. Whether you plant one color or mix and match different hues in group plantings, cannas are sure to make a bold statement in landscapes.

The Bicolor Iris, also known as the African Iris, features showy spikes of creamy white, orchid-like flowers with orange overtones and black spots rising above the foliage from mid spring to mid fall. Its attractive, narrow, sword-shaped evergreen leaves create a perfect backdrop for the beautiful blooms that last a day and are quickly replaced with a new one. It typically blooms in bursts of two week intervals with each flower stalk containing several buds on each one. Bicolor Irises will grow to be about 24 inches tall at maturity with a spread of 24 inches. The flowers are excellent for cutting.

As the grand finale of summer starts to wind downs and fall begins to make an appearance, Fall Asters make their big entrance. They add vibrant color to the late summer and autumn landscapes with a daisy-like lavender flowers. Fall Asters are easy to grow and bloom predictably and reliably and can be used in many places such as borders, rock gardens or wildflower gardens. Asters also attract bees and butterflies, providing the pollinators with an important late-season supply of nectar.

A summer garden mainstay for centuries, phlox owes its on-going popularity to its clouds of billowy blooms, easy-care and stately stature. The dainty five-petaled flowers of phlox, available in a wide array of colors from white, red, and lavender to salmon, purple and nearly every shade of pink, is derived from the Greek word for flame. The blooms are packed by the dozens into dense clusters and often have a sweet vanilla-clove fragrance. They establish quickly with full sun and adding just a few phlox will add major color to your landscaping as they are available in a wide variety of colors. The typical bloom period for phlox is late spring through fall and the pollinators love their flowers.

Featuring lacy foliage and numerous jewel-like flowers and native to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, Mexican heather, also known as False heather, is a flowering groundcover that produces masses of bright green leaves covered in showy, delicate lavender blooms from spring through fall. Growing up to 18 inches tall, Mexican heather is a tough, drought-tolerant plant loves direct sunlight and thrives in intense heat. It makes a wonderful border or container plant or to line walkways with. As a bonus, the flowers are as attractive to butterflies and other pollinators.

Blue Daze, also referred to as the shaggy dwarf morning-glory or Hawaiian Blue Eyes, is extremely popular because of the intense, true sky-blue color of its flowers. It is a heat and sun-loving, low-spreading, drought tolerant tropical plant that will provide blooms throughout the late spring, summer and fall and performs best in the full sun. The grayish-green foliage serves as a wonderful backdrop for the delicate blue flowers. Blue Daze is perfect as a border, ground cover or as a cascading plant in hanging baskets or containers. The flowers usually close up at night and on cloudy days.

Time for planting fall gardens. Shoal Creek Nursery has broccoli, tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, squash, brussel sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, and many more.

Nothing matches the taste of homegrown vegetables spread across the dinner table. Plus there are many benefits to growing your own vegetables from tomatoes and bell peppers to egg-plant and squash. Easy to grow, fresh vegetables are a central part of a healthy diet. They are loaded with essential nutrients that promote better health, including antioxidants and vitamins. Adding fresh vegetables to your daily diet is the best way to boost your health. And you don’t need a large yard to build a vegetable garden. Even the tiniest slice of space can be transformed into a lush, thriving garden.

Low growth habit makes this an excellent choice for a low border plant. Small, dark green leaves turn a rich, burgundy-red in winter for cool season interest. Adapts to a wide range of cultural conditions and mixes well in almost any landscape. Evergreen.

Native to East, South and Central Texas, growing in shady, well-drained areas along the banks of streams and limestone canyon walls, Turks Cap is a wonderful shrub plant with gorgeous red flowers attractive to butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. Though it has never been verified, Turk’s cap apparently seems to have received its name by the flower that resembles a fez, the red felt hat formerly worn by Turkish men. The red flowers are perfect for a little burst of color after a good portion of your garden may have stopped flowering.

The Loropetalum, an evergreen shrub that looks good in just about any landscape, is also known as Chinese witch hazel or Chinese fringe flower and puts on a beautiful show in spring with small, frilly flowers, typically pink. It is native to China, Japan, and the Himalayas and is a member of the witch hazel family.

It is hard to miss the stunning blooms of hydrangeas — changing blue in acidic soil, pink in that with more lime. And of course, the white hydrangeas, with blooms resembling large snowballs. The colorful changing flowers is one reason why growing hydrangeas is so much fun. They’re not only easy to grow but are also quite hardy and resistant to most pests and diseases. And with numerous varieties to choose from, you are certain to find one that is right for you. Although there are many types of hydrangeas, most can be grown in full sun or partial shade. Many hydrangeas do not like extremely hot conditions, so try to locate them in an area where they can enjoy some afternoon shade. While they can be grown in a wide range of soils, hydrangeas typically prefer rich, moist soil that drains easily. Amending the soil with compost prior to planting is helpful.

Having been in cultivation for more than a 1000 years and standing for faithfulness and longevity in the language of flowers, the Camellia shrub is one of the points of pride in Southern gardening. They are dense shrubs with brilliant foliage and offer bright, long-blooming flowers that come in white, pink, red or streaked and the blooms can be single or double. Camellias make a beautiful addition to winter wedding flower arrangements.

Also known as Cuban buttercup, buttercup bush or yellow alder, the yellow, buttercup-like, five petaled flowers brighten up bare spots in the landscape with flowers that bloom in the mornings and last most of the day. The dark green serrated, oval shaped foliage, which is fragrant, provides a perfect backdrop for the showy, two-inch wide blooms. Native to the Caribbean, the fast growing evergreen perennial shrub attracts butterflies as well as other pollinators and is heat and drought tolerant with continued blooming during the hottest part of the summer.

The extremely popular Dwarf Nandina Firepower gets its name from the colorful effect that it brings to your landscape. Dwarf Nandina Firepower begins with vibrant lime-green foliage during the spring and summer and as the weather starts to cool, the magic show kicks into gear as the leaves turn into a showstopper during the fall with leaves that turn into a flaming display of brilliant red and orange. This performance will last throughout the fall and winter, enhancing other colors in the winter landscape. Dwarf Nandina Firepower can grow up to 3 feet in height. Using as a border along driveways, entryways or property lines for that splash of fall and winter color.

With masses of blooms that come in long, spiked trusses as well as a variety of colors from white, pink and yellow to blue and purple, the butterfly bush blooms from summer to fall and creates a wonderful attraction for butterflies. The popularity of butterfly bushes is no surprise as they are beautiful, easy to grow and require minimal day-to-day care. They're also resistant to insects, drought, and stress. Butterfly bushes usually grow around 5 to 7 feet tall which makes it a fantastic statement shrub to plant at the back of landscapes.

With their rich color and year-round visual interest, the Japanese barberry makes a stunning addition to any landscape by combining toughness, adaptability and versatility. Native to Japan and Southeast Asia, Japanese barberry has small, oval leaves that vary from green to a dark reddish purple with stems that have single spines along their length. Small, yellow flowers are produced during the spring followed by bright-red, long-lasting berries often into winter. Japanese barberry is a very dense plant due to the multitude of small twigs and branches and works very well as a hedge because of their uniform growth pattern but can also be grown in containers.

Loved for their intoxicatingly fragrant, creamy white flowers and thick, glossy leaves, gardenias, synonymous with the south, are actually native to China and Japan and named for Alexander Garden, a Scottish physician and botanist who lived in Charleston, South Carolina, in the late 1700s. Long-lasting blooms appear mostly in spring and summer, though some varieties bloom again in fall. No matter the season, if you have gardenias in your garden, passersby will be sure to smell them well before they see them. Plant them near a path or next to a deck, patio, swimming pool or other sitting area so you can really appreciate the perfume.

One of the best ways to welcome the arrival of spring is with the profusion of rich, golden yellow blooms covering graceful, arching branches. Forsythia is a fast-growing, hardy shrub that bursts forth into bloom in late winter, providing a sunny scene before the remainder of the landscape starts to green up. blooms early — providing a sunny sight before the rest of the landscape greens up. The forsythias foliage is a deep green color and the serrated leaves act as a neutral backdrop for other plants. Sometimes they will even put on little show in fall with the leaves turning a deep purple just before they fall.