Understory Garden

09/03/2026

Are all of our friends and customers in Texas watching the weather like we are? We are SO ready for fall! We've been busy in our gardens, catching up on chores, nurturing our natives, and getting our property ready for our favorite growing season.

If you haven’t made a plan yet for your fall garden, it’s time! The cool temperatures and relatively mild winters in central Texas make gardening a treat. So many people sleep on cold season growing, we’re always trying to get the word out that fall and winter is where it’s at! Make sure you’re checking your local planting calendar, and be ready with your native seeds since many need cold stratification over winter to grow.

We have lots of wonderful freshly harvested seeds coming in from our garden right now, available on our Etsy store. Here’s some of our favorites. Many of these seeds are coming from our newly rewilded front yard, we went from all grass to 100% Texas natives! Pictured are Texas Thistle, Leavenworth's Eryngo, Purple Leatherflower Clematis, Snapdragon Vine, Marsh Fleabane, Maypop Passionflower, and Inland Sea Oats.

As always, thank you so much to you all for supporting our little garden. We are a small business, and we truly appreciate everyone who follows along with our gardening adventures! Sending you warm wishes for a bountiful, beautiful fall growing season!

Our Etsy store:
https://understorygarden.etsy.com

07/04/2026

Plant Sale happening now in Block House, Leander! There’s a mix of natives, medicinals, and pollinator plants! All of these thrive throughout our crazy hot summers and are very well hardened off and ready for your garden. Front porch, self serve, Venmo and Cashapp scan codes are on table or PM for cash instructions. I have limited ability to answer growing/care instructions in detail but all can be found on Google, happy to answer any questions related to our sale or practices. I’m not able to hold plants. Will continue into Sunday as long as we aren't fully sold out. Some things always sell out quickly so arriving early is recommended. PM if it’s your first time visiting and need our address.

Cardinal Climbers $3. Hummingbird favorite, rapidly growing red-flowered annual vine. Multiple starts in each pot, plant together or divide. Great candidate for filling in if your tomatoes or cucumbers are ready for chopping down.

Thai Red Roselle Hibiscus $3. Delicious and highly beneficial medicinal tea herb, strikingly beautiful presence in the garden. Multiple starts in each pot, dividing or thinning recommended.

Molokhia Egyptian Spinach $3. Nutrient rich source of leafy greens all summer long. Returns a huge amount of food for the space it takes up. The leaves dehydrate well, we dry them and add them to smoothies, and use the fresh leaves in cooking almost daily throughout the summer. Multiple starts in each pot, dividing or thinning recommended. One of our favorites that many people don't know about, try it out!

Lagos Spinach Celosia $3. Highly ornamental source of leafy greens, thrives through heat and humidity. Starts off as a rosette of attractive colorful foliage, eventfully tall spikes of magenta flowers appear. Pollinators go crazy for this one! Great for cut flowers too!

Texas Native Leadplant $5. Nearly impossible to find in nurseries, high pollinator value and an amazing specimen shrub/small tree. We have been growing these rare babies out for over half a year and now they’re finally ready for homes!

Texas Native Eve’s Necklacepod trees $5, 6 available. Beautiful small specimen tree, loads of flowers the pollinators love.

Texas Native Coralberry $5, 5 available. Graceful and versatile, plant in sun or shade. Produces magenta berries the birds love. It’s a tough as nails plant that is extremely useful for filling in areas where other plants won’t grow.

*edit sold out Celeste Figs--- $10, 2 available. Figs are among the easiest fruit trees to grow in Texas, and Celeste is one of the most reliable, heavily-producing varieties.

* edit one left--- Hoja Santa aka Rootbeer Plant $10, 4 available. Majestic shade-loving beauty with many uses in cooking and herbal medicine. Has been reliably perennial in our garden. It can be hard to find in nurseries so if you’ve been looking come and grab one!

Plus seed packets gathered from our favorites in our own garden, presorted for planting now. $3

Thank you for reading and for your support. Happy 4th!💚

06/05/2026

Joey keeping it real as usual. No, Californians moving to Texas aren’t the problem. Lots of people are in need of a wake up call, we’re only as good as we treat each other and the land.

TEXAS needs to hear this, and I know I'll be deleting comments from dumb-as-a-brick meatheads for the next three days but it's worth it to me :

Another small lot full of rare plants in Austin is now set to be bulldozed and turned into - of all things - a car dealership. I've seen Pediomelum latestipulatum growing here along with all kinds of other cool and unique pieces of the Edwards Plateau and hill country prairie/juniper woodland landscape.

This isn't "CALIFORNIANS MOVING HERE", you jadrool-bastard-morons, it's your people and the s**tty corrupt politicians that Texans choose to elect. So tired of hearing this "locals only" rhetoric that you'd normally hear coming out of burnt out surfers in Southern California.

Texans love being "anti-outsider" because it's easier than admitting that greedy, sleazy elements of your own culture encouraged and supported this. If you had a culture that supported conservation over money, and if you elected politicians that weren't owned by developers, you wouldn't be facing these problems. If you had politicians that INCENTIVIZED conservation and offered the kind of tax breaks or buyouts that they offer to developers, you'd have more beautiful land around you. Start cultivating that kind of culture ... It's not that hard to do.

I see this same nonsense happening in Florida. "Stop moving here". Yeah, sure, believe me, you couldn't pay me to...but how about you stop voting for greedy slimey dirtbag politicians who are owned by developers and construction companies. You realize the financial incentives to turn every last little bit of YOUR land into the ugliest, most bleak commercial s**t imaginable are huge?

At the end of the day these are Texans (whatever that even means anymore) that are choosing to sell their lots rather than conserve them. These are Texan politicians that are giving tax incentives to developers in order to try to get them to erect their s**tty projects. These are Texan construction companies that are getting the contracts to build these monstrosities. Worry about keeping your own side of the street clean and then you can start s**tting on Californians.

If you're tired of over-development, start voting like it.

To all the snobs whining about me posting the location : without the location the entire point of this post is missing. People need something they know and can connect it to.

To anybody who wants to "rescue" (steal and loot) plants : we don't know the full status of this parcel yet. There's a small chance it could be saved or the owners can be convinced to steward it. Don't get stupid and greedy. The "rescue" can kill the plants and should only be done by professionals who know what they're doing and know that you have to remove 80% of the shoots so that they don't keep trying to pull moisture from roots that are severely damaged. It is something that needs to be done by professionals with experience or else the plants die.

06/03/2026

Harvested a little garlic today!

05/27/2026

Progress update of our front yard after last night’s soaking rain. We could not have asked for better weather this year while things get established, all from seed and small transplants. In just 6 months we’ve gone from grass to this diverse mix of 40+ species of 100% Texas native plants. In the pics are heartleaf skullcap, common sunflowers, and a mass planting of inland sea oats surrounding our oak. We’re looking forward to sitting on the front porch this fall and watching the birds feeding on seed heads.

05/21/2026

Before and after of a little native planting we’ve been working on. There’s many varieties of native species in the mix but right now lemon beebalm and black-eyed susans are the stars of the show.

05/15/2026

Front porch plant sale this weekend starting Saturday! Update: Yes still plants available Sunday. Lots of our favorite natives and other hard to find plants! Seed packs gathered from our garden too, sorted for planting now - melons, okra, cucumbers, more! Our sales are honor system and contactless, we trust y'all to be cool and not take things without payment. All plants are grown in organic soil from seed or cuttings. Cash, Cash App, Venmo only, no other payment method. Scan codes on table or PM me for cash instructions. I’m not able to hold plants. PM if it's your first time visiting and need our address!

I have limited ability to answer detailed growing instructions but names of all plants are included below for your Googling convenience.

Native Western Ironweed- Important host plant and forage for pollinators. Masses of show stopping magenta flowers. Sun, part sun, dappled shade under trees. $6, 6 packs and larger singles available.

Native Coralberry- Sun, part sun, dappled shade under trees. Produces hot pink berries that make excellent bird forage. It’s a great option for tricky shady areas where other things won't grow. $10.

Native Maypop Passionflower- if you are looking for a host plant for fritillary butterflies only native passionflowers will work. They cannot live on most of the ones commonly found in garden centers. This vining plant produces huge beautiful blooms and edible fruit that tastes like lemon cream. Used in herbal medicine. Most of us have fences, why not use the space for vines to support pollinators and grow food? Sun or part sun. $10. Two plants in most of the 1 gallon pots, divide if you like or plant them together.

Native Missouri Violet- Spreading shade groundcover with tiny purple flowers. Butterfly host plant. Used in herbal medicine. $6.

Creeping Ruellia- spreading groundcover with showy purple flowers. Non native but non invasive. Not the same as as Mexican Petunia which can be highly invasive. This is well-behaved Ruellia squarrosa, ‘Blue Shade’. Part sun to shade. $6.

Celeste Figs $10

Lots of Mint! Chocolate, English, Kentucky Colonel, Thai, Apple, Eu de Cologne, Strawberry, and Basil Mint. Pay what you can.

Seeds packs from our tried and true favorite high producers in our garden- $3.

05/04/2026

Pics of all the wonderful things in the gardens right now. Everything is abuzz with life and beauty! We can’t get enough of this Texas native echinacea, the colors are jaw dropping!

04/11/2026

Garden visitors today- green anole in a patch of native Heartleaf Skullcap, firefly hanging out on Tulsi seedlings, interesting species of flower moth on Antelope Horn Milkweed, and a coachwhip snake. Ursula, just so you know the snake was at the Community Garden and is the fastest snake in North America 😆