November 5, 2026

By Mary Beth Gahan

The plants in Maribeth Koch’s front yard at the beginning of September were sparse.

Half of the leaves on her zinnias hung off the stems, curled and light brown. A begonia was no more than a two-inch-wide clump of waxy leaves. The rest of the shaded flower bed had a handful of house plants on life support.

It wasn’t just because of the 12-day stretch of 100 degrees days in Denton. Koch herself will admit the problem is her.

“I do not have a green thumb,” she said.

She does, however, have a blue one.

“The only thing in my yard is something that can take care of itself,” she said. “And that’s what bluebonnets do.”

By spring, her front yard will be covered in the state flower. Other plants might pop up .

Koch, 80, is known as the Bluebonnet Lady, but not just because of the azure floral display in her yard.

For the past five years, she’s been giving away thousands of seeds she collects by hand from the plants that bloom on her property. There’s even a waitlist.

While the growing of bluebonnets may be hands-off, getting to that point isn’t as easy as she makes it sound.

Bluebonnets aren’t annuals. The plant doesn’t come back each year; it grows only from seed. And to tend to the next generation, as Koch well knows, it takes time and effort.

She was a special education teacher in Denton for 21 years. She always preferred to teach older students, high school versus kindergarten.

“I loved it when the light bulb came on and they would say, ‘Oh, I get it!.’ That was my reward,” she said.

And when she retired, she continued helping out part-time by being a substitute teacher, mostly in math and science, since those were subjects she enjoyed.

Koch, who has lived in the Metroplex her entire life, bought a packet of bluebonnet seeds in the late 1980s after seeing them every year on the side of highways.

“I just thought, ‘I’d like to have some of those,’” she said.

She planted them and they did well the first year. She quickly learned how to draw the seeds out herself and save money at the nursery.

Sometime after peak bloom, the plant starts to produce a green seed pod. By May, they turn brown and curl up before dropping. That’s Koch’s harvest.

Each seed plant has six to 10 seed pods and each pod produces four to eight seeds, she said. There is a string on the end of the pods and when you pull it, the seeds fall out.

Every year, Koch posts on Nextdoor announcing that she has free seeds to give out. This year, she had 20 on the list and 40 more people on the wait list. Each received 100 seeds.

When those who are lucky enough to receive the seeds show up at her house in September, Koch gives them a little lesson at her dining table.

Bluebonnet seeds have a very hard coat, so some horticulturists suggest using a nail file to soften it, but Koch likes to soak her seeds in water for two days before planting.

She has seeds in a water to show an example to her students. Then she gives them a small plant that has already sprouted in soil. Finally, they get a Ziploc bag of seeds along with some instructions.

She asks them to let her know how their plants turn out in the spring. Only two people ever have.

But maybe that’s the lot of a teacher. You don’t always see the fruits of your labor.

Even though she knows the process and is the one planting the seeds, she’s still sometimes surprised by when and where the flowers bloom.

The first sightings of bluebonnets in south Texas each year tend to draw excitement from the rest of the state. Many Facebook groups track the progress of the blue blooms as they make their way slowly up Interstate 35 and declare that spring is on the way.

As any native knows, spring can come anywhere between February and April. The planting window is just as much of a spread.

Bluebonnets overwinter, meaning they need to be planted in late fall to establish roots. Some years, Koch plants seeds in September or October, whenever the heat breaks. That can be as late as early November. This year, she planted in late October.

Once they’re planted, Koch waters them every day until the seeds germinate and sprout a stem with three leaves. Once they have several stems, Koch goes hands-off and lets nature do its thing.

Freezes don’t kill the plant and they do just fine under snow. By late February, the plants start getting bigger. She has a strict no-mowing policy by then.

“You have to let them grow up through the grass and the weeds and so on, in order for them to mature and make the seeds,” Koch said.

Somewhere between early March and mid-April, the bluebonnets put on a show.

Koch takes photos, just like everyone else. Her iPad is full of them. The year rainwater must have swept seeds into her side yard because the entire portion was covered in bluebonnets and her HOA ordered her to cut them down. Another time one seed fell between a crack between her driveway and garage, producing a plant with at least 20 flowers.

In May, when the bluebonnet is past its prime, when others have put away their cameras and the plant starts to turn brown or gray, that’s when she goes to work. Oh, they’re ugly, she admits. But she sees potential.