A new mobile app from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation (TPWF) is making it easier to successfully grow native plants and support pollinators right at home. Wild Thumb helps Texans choose the right native plants for their location and guides them through planting and care, whether they’re starting with a patio pot, refreshing a flower bed or adding a small patch of prairie.
Wild Thumb was created as part of TPWF’s Pollinators & Prairies Program, which works to increase healthy prairie habitat and pollinator populations across Texas. Creating an easy-to-use planting tool for homeowners was a key strategy of this new program to increase awareness and give people a way to help pollinators thrive.
To build the app, TPWF engaged a botanical database specialist to develop a customized database of commonly available native plants tailored to each of Texas’ 11 ecoregions, using source information from the Native Plant Society of Texas’ native plant database.
TPWF then worked with app developer Outside Studio to create a visually attractive and engaging tool that provides personalized plant recommendations, simple design tools, step-by-step planting instructions, nursery and seed provider information and timely reminders for watering, pruning and freeze protection.
“Wild Thumb makes it simple for anyone — no matter where they live or how much space they have — to be part of the pollinator solution,” says Julie Shaddox, TPWF’s director of Development & Conservation Programs. “By planting even a few native species, Texans can make a difference in restoring the habitat our native pollinators depend on.”
Wild Thumb was made possible in part by presenting sponsor H-E-B’s Our Texas, Our Future and contributing sponsor Phillips 66. Wild Thumb is now available for free download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
