Esperanza
(Tecoma stans), Hibiscus (hardy & tropical), Plumbago, Duranta, Lantana, and Perennial Salvias are all popular blooming/landscaping plants/shrubs in our area and crepe myrtles are probably the #1 blooming tree with Vitex probably second.
Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) have become very popular in the area, a row of those in bloom is a traffic stopper!
Oleander are often used in commercial landscaping and some residential. Plumeria are frequently spotted in yards but you have to protect it really well from a freeze if they're in ground (sometimes that's still not enough to save them).
Citrus trees are the most common fruit tree. Most fruit trees won't grow here because of our lack of cold dormancy time. There are a couple of peach varieties that do okay in our area.
Some people xeri-scape their yards, ditching lawn/flower beds/shrubs and replacing with rocks, cacti, and drought tolerant plants like desert sage.
We grow cool weather annuals (pansy, violas, stocks, etc) during the late fall thru spring when the temperature is more moderate, then grow heat tolerant annuals (portulaca, zinnia, sages, vinca, pentas etc) when the furnace is full blast again.
Raised beds are popular here. Anyone that plants garden beds usually have to amend the clay crap LoL. We have coastal gumbo clay here in the area and high alkaline ph both soil and water. Being coastal also means fairly high salt content in the area. (LoL, I won't even start on the humidity) Our climate is considered subtropical (Z9) but that's just a nice way of saying it's damn hot most of the year.
The fun thing about Texas is we have a huge range of climates and soils. Our area is considered coastal plains. If I go a couple hundred miles NE toward Houston area, it's totally different- acidic red soil, more rainfall - pines, magnolias, and azalea

everywhere. Go NW instead and you run into limestone rocks, caliche soil, and post cedar. So while in theory, my climate may be similar to Houston, azaleas won't grow well here unless you constantly baby them with an acidifier. And there are lots of perennials that simply cannot tolerate our prolonged extreme summer temps, I like to say they melt down here.
LoL, sorry, sometimes I tend to go overboard haha, information overload, did that answer your question? Didn't want you to think nothing grows here, altho with the prolonged drought we're currently in, it's starting to look pretty barren in the area. Do you want to hear about area crops or the native species?

(hint on native species, most everything likes to stab, poke, or sting ya).