You have probably noticed that some plants bloom only once a year and others bloom more than once a year. Among the roses, for example, Lady Banks is a gorgeous yellow rose that blooms only in the spring but the Peace rose will bloom repeatedly if the old dead rose blossom is removed. We call this removal of dead flowers, dead heading.
Among the flowers that grow and bloom in our area there are many common plants that will flower more than once a season if you dead head them after they bloom. Lantana, petunias, mealy blue sage, zinnias and crepe myrtles are all common central Texas flowers that will bloom more than once if the dead blooms are removed.
Although we usually think of wildflowers as spring blooming flowers, there continue to be wildflowers throughout the summer and fall. The fall wildflowers often respond to the shorter days. The other day a neighbor asked me the name of a simple yellow wildflower about a foot tall found in the grass by the side of the road. It was unique in that it didn’t have any broad leaves – only thin thread-like leaves.
When I look up a wildflower I usually go to Wildflowers of the Texas Hill Country by Marshall Enquist. I found that the yellow flower I was looking for is in the Greenthread family (Thelesperma). There are two common varieties in our area both of which have thin thread-like leaves. One is all yellow and called NavajoTea (a Perennial) and the other is called Greenthread which is an Annual that has mainly yellow ray flowers with brown disk flowers in the middle.
