Been watching a few videos here and there on Texas Parks and Wildlife's YouTube channel. I'm a particular fan of this one, about a project in studying urban bobcat activity. There's about a five by ten foot part of the yard that's currently unused that my wife and I want to plant some native pollinators in. We're hoping to use plants that won't grow too tall or spread out like crazy, because we don't want to make a mess of things. Heaven forbid our project spills into our neighbors yard, or even worse, we inadvertently grow some problematic species. I'm currently compiling a list of possible candidates using information from lists provided by our state department of natural resources, a local botanical garden, and the internet in general. When I think I have a good list, I'm gonna reach out to one of the members of the horticultural department at one of our local universities soon, as they came highly recommended and from what I understand they have as lot of papers and studies they can provide. One of our friends and her husband also has a few acres of land, of which they've devoted some to native species and I'm gonna be in constant contact with them for advice as well. We've only ever really grown peppers, tomatoes, and carrots, so this is something new and exciting for us. I'm looking forward to seeing what develops.
Also look for your local Master Gardeners group or club. MG's are normally a group of local, dedicated, wonderful old lady gardeners, who have decades of extensive training and practical experience with the local flora. My Mom is a Master Gardener and designs gardens for a living. Her gardens ALWAYS work beautifully, while gardens that follow local university guidelines often have major issues. I often see my Mom shake her head at planting an X next to a Y and saying things like, "Oh, you can't ever plant those two together, because the blahblah from the X interacts with the whiggywhiggy from the Y, and turns the soil all acidy. Chases the worms right out of the garden, and your soil goes to hell." Or similar things... MG's also have regular plant sales, and are just the sweetest people.
Good advice, thank you. We definitely want to limit ourselves to just one or two flowers, partly because of the whole interaction issue, but mostly because different plants have different properties and since we're new at this, we don't want to overwhelm ourselves maintenance wise.