D riving down a Texas highway in the spring, whether you’re in the Hill Country, the Panhandle or on the Gulf Coast, feels like watching a million different paintings flash past you at 60 miles an hour (but usually a lot faster).
Just drive out of Houston in any direction and see for yourself. The concrete shoulders and medians give way to strips of grass packed with bluebonnets, bright-red prairie fire and pink buttercups, as if nature were greeting you with stubborn bursts of color even as you speed through in a car that is actively choking the environment.
While nature deserves its credit for the blooms themselves, our colorful roadsides are actually the result of decades of deliberate choices about how Texas manages its highways, so let’s get into it.
Why Texas highways are covered in wildflowers
The state has been beautifying its roadsides since the 1930s, when the Texas Highway Department hired landscape architect Jac Gubbels…