Planting a successful garden starts with knowing your place, and every place is different. Pick good plants for your garden by learning about your ecoregion!
What is an ecoregion anyway?
Ecoregions are areas where ecosystems are broadly similar. Have you ever wondered why different parts of Bexar County have a completely different look and feel? That has a lot to do with the ecoregion that area is a part of. Ecoregions are important because they dictate what plants will thrive in your garden
Do you live in urban San Antonio, eastern or western Bexar County? New Braunfels, Schertz, Seguin?
Congratulations, you’re living in the Blackland Prairie, the southwestern most of America’s tallgrass prairies! Ecosystems here are typically composed of prairie grasses and wildflowers growing in deep soils (usually clay). Armadillo Gardens specializes in plants from this ecoregion.
Northern Bexar County? Western Comal County? Kendall County?
You’re living right on the Balcones Escarpment, a fault line dividing the lower prairies from the higher Edwards Plateau. This is the beginning of the shortgrass prairies and savannas of the West.
Far South Bexar, Wilson and Atascosa Counties?
Depending on where you are, you’ll be either in the Post Oak Savanna or the Nueces Plains. Ecosystems here are composed of tall prairie grasses and wildflowers between scattered stands of oaks and mesquite, trending towards drier and shorter grasses in the west and on the sandiest soils. Go far enough south and you’ll get into the thorn forests of deep South Texas.
