Your garden center near Flower Mound, TX.

The ground under Flower Mound

The town is named for a real mound: 12.5 acres of native tallgrass Blackland Prairie at FM 3040 and FM 2499, about three miles from the garden center. Settlers named it for its wildflowers, and the Flower Mound Foundation has kept it as a conservancy since 1983.

Most of Flower Mound sits in the Eastern Cross Timbers, and the soil can change from one street to the next. USDA soil maps show fine sandy loams across much of town, usually five or six inches of sandy topsoil over a dense clay subsoil, with heavier clay loam in other spots, including the ground right around the garden center. Water soaks in quickly at first, then slows down at the clay. Amending beds and planting holes, and keeping mulch on top, helps roots get through the summer.

Flower Mound's long-term water conservation plan limits automatic sprinklers and hose-end sprinklers to two days a week: Tuesday and Friday for even-numbered addresses, Wednesday and Saturday for odd, and never between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Hand watering, drip, and soaker hoses are allowed at any time. That exception matters for anything newly planted, since a fresh root ball can dry out long before the clay around it does. How often to water new plants walks through it.