Prickly Pair RGV

Home
United States
Edinburg, TX
Prickly Pair RGV

Native plants and landscape design for people and wildlife in the Rio Grande Valley. 🌸🌱🌿
A Kasper-Brush Collaboration

Build Soil. Save Water. Feed People.

10/18/2026

550 gallons of rainwater storage, ready and waiting for the next rainy day! And with this roof area, it will only take 1.2 inches of rain to fill the tanks!

This system uses repurposed food grade IBC totes that once held tapioca syrup. The two chained tanks will fill and empty together and the harvested water will support nearby raised garden beds. The overflow is directed into a basin in the landscape where it can soak in and support more native trees and shrubs along with edible perennials

Rainwater harvesting offers water conservation and resilience, and can be integrated with edible food gardens as well as native landscaping.

We're certified Water Harvesting Design Practitioners and looking to take on more rainwater projects, from earthworks to rain tank installation. If you're interested in a design, feel free to reach out!

10/14/2026

Make sure you stop by Oleander Acres Nursery for their native plant sale this Saturday! They carry many of the native plants we include in our designs, along with other species that aren't often available for purchase. This is a great time of year to add native plants to your landscaping!

09/22/2026

More photos from a couple of recent native garden installations! There are after and before photos from a client who wanted a native forest-like garden in their backyard. For that one, we included a diverse array of plant growth types, from trees (Tepeguaje, Texas Paloverde, Anacahuita) to large shrubs (Fiddlewood, Kidneywood, Babybonnets, Vasey's Adelia), and medium and small shrubs (Crucita, Spring Mistflower, Hairy Wedelia, Brushland Lantana, Velvet Lantana, etc.), along with some Zizotes Milkweeds and Scarlet Sage as herbaceous plants. A stepping stone pathway will allow them to move through their wildscape.

For the other client, they already had a good variety of native plants in their space and wanted some additional diversity to provide more flowers for them and the wildlife visiting their yard to enjoy. Even with only planting 36 plants, we added 14 more drought-resilient and wildlife-benefitting species to their yard.

We enjoy putting together designs, and getting to plant them, to help folks acheive their goals for their space. If you're interested in a design, feel free to send us an inquiry - we're in one of the best times of year to plant!

09/11/2026

It's tea time and we can't get over the colors! 🫖 ☕

Prickly Pair wild herbal teas are now available in the National Butterfly Center gift shop!

White lippia, Mexican oregano, colima, and a blend of the 3 that we call Herbal Valley. Whitebrush + shrubby blue blend coming as soon as our yard plants get big enough to prune!

Tomorrow at 10 am, Steph will lead a native edible foraging walk at the Butterfly Center along with a tea tasting and mesquite chocolate chip cookies. See you there!

09/08/2026

We had a great time installing one of our designs for a client today. This one was in a neighborhood with a HOA, with a request from the client to bring in some unique plants as part of the design.

In the small pea-gravel beds, we included a vareity of native cactus and succulent species such as Horse Crippler (Homalocephala texensis), Ladyfinger Cactus (Echinocereus pentalophus), Miniature Barrel Cactus (Hamatocactus setispinus), along with two Jatropha species - Jicamilla (J. cathartica) and Leatherstem (J. dioica). We planted frequently flowering herbs and shrubs like Heartleaf Hibiscus (Hibiscus martianus) and Hoary Blackfoot Daisy (Melampodium cinereum), with a native bunch grass (Purple Threeawn, Aristida purpurea) providing some additional texture to the space.

We also included native plants that can be used in cooking or as teas in the form of Mexican Oregano (Lippia origanoides), Shrubby Blue Sage (Salvia ballotiflora), Whitebrush (Aloysia gratissima). We rounded it out with favorites like Vasey's Adelia (Adelia vaseyi), Turk's Cap (Malvaviscus arboreus), Texas Kidneywood (Eysenhardtia texana), Cenizo (Leucophyllum frutescens), Hairy Wedelia (Wedelia hispida), and Gregg's Mistflower (Conoclinium dissectum) to provide structure and lots of resources for pollinators.

These after photos are on day 1, so we're looking forward to seeing how these plants continue to fill in and thrive as we enter our rainy season and the fall!

08/23/2026

We've introduced new plants and brought back returning favorites to the store! Some updates include 5-gallon sized Mexican Oregano (Lippia origanoides), which is a superstar of drought-tolerance and taste in cooking, along with some South Texas specialty plants like Texas Craglily (Echeandia texensis), Littleflower Roseling (Callisia micrantha), and Velvet Lantana (Lantana velutina).

We're excited to get to the optimal planting season of September - November here in the Rio Grande Valley and get plants in the ground!

07/11/2026

We had a blast talking about rainwater flows and how they can support native landscapes! Thanks to and for putting together such an inspiring lineup of speakers and to all the attendees for sharing their native landscape design ideas during our hands-on design activity!

06/29/2026

We're growing! These are some of the plants we're currently propagating, either letting fill out or go to fruit over the summer for seed sourcing.

1. Hoary Blackfoot (Melampodium cinereum): A beautiful low-growing perennial frequently seen in Starr County and further northwest. Limited to the Tamaulipan Mezquital in the US.

2. Tamaulipan Rocktrumpet (Mandevilla lanuginosa): Another Tamaulipan Mezquital specialty in the US. These plants in the Apocynaceae have beautiful white flowers that are mostly open in the morning.

3. Mexican Oregano (Lippia origanoides): One of our favorite native edible plants, but also a prolific bloomer great for small pollinators. We're letting some size up in 5-gallon pots.

4. Texas Craglily (Echeandia texensis: A plant in the Asparagaceae that is very limited to South Texas between Kingsville and the Rio Grande Valley. Lovely yellow flowers and grass-like growth form.

5. Western Soapberry (Sapindus drummondii): A fantastic native tree that actually gets fall-winter colors, with their leaves turning yellow and orange. We're keeping some in 1-gallon pots and letting others size up in 5-gallon pots.

6. Texas Ebony (Ebenopsis ebano): An absolute foundational tree of the Rio Grande Valley. Long-lived, provides amazing shade, and is a fantastic resource for wildlife.

7. Littleflower Roseling (Callisia micrantha): A relative of the abundant dayflowers (Commelina), but with delicate pink flowers. Another plant that is mostly limited to South Texas.

06/14/2026

Native plants and birdwatching go hand in hand! Make sure to check out the native plant selection available at next time you're going by to pick up bird-feeding supplies, bird baths, or other birding merchanise. They now have some of the drought-tolerant plants we grew in stock, including Purple Threeawn (Aristida purpurea), Coastal Germander (Teucrium cubense), Prairie Coneflower (Ratibida columnifera), and Frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), among many other native species grown by other local vendors. You'll see them out in front of the store!

06/08/2026

We also have 3-4 foot tall Anacahuita (Cordia boissieri) available. These trees typically get to be 15 to 25 feet tall and have abundant white flowers. They provide good shade and are attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds.

Visit our online store to see what we've got in stock! We can deliver the plants right to your door, or you can get in touch with us to schedule when you'd like to come pick them up.

Address

Edinburg, TX
78542

Website

http://prickly-pair-rgv.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Prickly Pair RGV posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.