Houston Botanic Garden

This year marks the centennial of Route 66, the iconic road that spans 2,448 miles across eight states, from Chicago to Los Angeles — including right through the Texas Panhandle.

The Garden’s very own iconic “road” is quietly growing along one of our most traveled pathways, evoking highway shoulders across the Lone Star State. Known as the Texas Road Trip, this new planting brings wildflowers and native grasses from the ten Texas Ecoregions to distinct beds between the Culinary Garden and Sims Bayou. Meant to be mow-able, like the wildflowers on the side of the highway, these blooms show off the diversity of Texas flora, from the Piney Woods to the Trans-Pecos.

Pictured is one of Route 66’s Texas Ecoregions, the High Plains, which is blooming with Plains coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria) and Cowpen daisy (Verbesina encelioides), among others.

Long roads and long drives have enchanted us for more than 100 years, and now, just a short stroll within Houston’s Garden can also bring the whole state into view.

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