grassroots Horticulture : Frogfruit

Tiny Flowers, Make you Happy🎶🎶🎶

Frog-fruit, Phyla nodiflora is a low-growing native Texas perennial. It has verbena-like flowers and is a member of the Verbenaceae family. You can use it as a ground cover that has low foot traffic and in wet areas such as shaded riparian slopes. It will hold its leaves but might turn red during a mild winter in north central Texas. We had it growing in our cul-de-sac but one summer drought did it in. It needs to be watered.

The white flowers are prolific, ½ inch heads, and bloom spring to fall. White flowers are used in moon gardens to reflect the light in the evening. Not only is it romantic the reflectivity helps enhance security and prevent tripping along paths leading into your home.

Frog-fruit or sometimes referred to as fogfruit or lippia is tolerant of many soils and soil conditions. Sand, loam, caliche, clay, limestone, well drained or seasonal poor drainage and it even tolerates salinity.

You can propagate it easily by root division and it will colonize by stolons. It tolerates most sun conditions, from shade to full sun. It is a nectar source for pollinators and flowers best in full sun. It can be a host plant for the Phaon Crescent, White Peacock and Common Buckeye butterfly larvae.

Phyla is a genus of eustarid plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. The name is derived from the Greek word φυλή (phyle), meaning "tribe", and most likely refers to the tightly clustered flowers or the spreading, mat-like growth. Members of the genus are known generally as fogfruit or frogfruit. Species once classified in the genus Lippia may be known by the common name lippia. Some species, e.g. Aztec Sweet Herb (P. dulcis), are used in cooking.

Love them till the end of time.🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶