SHIFTING THE EDUCATION PARADIGM BACK TO NATURE PAGE 26
Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) flowers dry in the sun, awaiting their big moment, when seeds disperse for blooming seasons to come. The distinctive heads are packed with seedfilled tubes that feed birds and other wildlife. During its blooming season, wild bergamot — also called beebalm — provides gorgeous tubular flowers with abundant nectar for long-tongued pollinators. Wild bergamot grows in a wide variety of soil and site conditions and is native east of the Rocky Mountains. Growing up to four feet tall, it is a recognizable and worthy addition to Texas landscapes.
PHOTO Chris Helzer
Upon closer inspection, a dried flower cluster of wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) reveals its geometry and patina. The seeds ripen about two months after bloom and the plant colonizes by rhizomes, making it an easy-toestablish landscape plant. With blooms ranging from white to pink to purple, wild bergamot provides a range of color to the garden, as well as a fresh minty scent. The leaves were used by indigenous peoples to treat multiple ailments, from headaches to respiratory problems. This pollinator favorite thrives in prairie and savanna landscapes. PHOTO Chris Helzer
Leaning Into Learning
IN THE FALL, LIFE’S WORK RECOMMENCES. Summer breaks are over. Students get back to the books. It’s time to put up the harvest and mulch the leaves; time to pick up that project you set aside for the summer; time to get back to it. Days shorten, leaves start to turn, and we all go back to school — some of us in classrooms, and some of us in more indirect ways.
One of the great things about working here at the Wildflower Center is the culture of curiosity we enjoy and nurture every day. “Discovery” is, in fact, one of our core values, along with Biodiversity, Hospitality and Stewardship. The spotting of an unusual bird or insect can cause everyone to stop their work and see it for themselves. “What kind of bird is it?!” you hear from down the hallway. You don’t waste a second. You jump out of your chair or leave your post in the garden and run to see what it is. That’s how we’re wired around here.
Lady Bird Johnson adhered to a philosophy that we should learn something new every day, so discovery is baked into our DNA. Our association with The University of Texas at Austin has only enriched our culture of curiosity. We’re hosting more graduate student research projects than ever before and continuing to expand our Science and Conservation team
to enable more research activities. Our paid internship program allows undergraduates to gain hands-on experience in our gardens, research areas and offices. And we’re sharing our knowledge with other UT Austin field research stations, helping them manage their land by collaborating on prescribed burns. With articles about the development of innovative new outdoor classrooms, gardening on a budget, the launch of the Texas Field Station Network, and an autodidactic botanist, this issue of Wildflower leans into learning. There’s no due date, no pop quiz, no grades, so flip though at your leisure. We hope you’ll find something here that inspires you to cultivate a culture of curiosity in your own workplace, neighborhood or home. And, if you spot an unusual bird out your window, be sure to share the experience with someone.
Lee Clippard Executive Director
WILDFLOWER
2024 | Volume 41, No. 2
Addie Broyles is a writer raising two boys, a warren of rabbits and a medicine garden at an urban farm she shares with her husband in North Austin. A longtime food writer, she now writes a weekly column about ancestry, grief and history — and other things that connect us that we cannot see — at thefeministkitchen. com.
Anna Funk, Ph.D., is a writer, editor and consultant who turned her passion for plant ecology into a mission. She runs Ampliflora, a marketing studio dedicated to helping conservation and environmental organizations amplify their impact through strategic content planning and storytelling. She lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Find her online at ampliflora.com.
Melissa Gaskill writes about science, nature and the envi -
ronment for a variety of publications, including Alert Diver, The Revelator, Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine and
Stardate. Her books include “A Worldwide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles” and “Pandas to Penguins: Ethical Encounters with Animals at Risk.” She has a zoology degree from Texas A&M University and a master’s in journalism from The University of Texas at Austin.
Lucy Griffith lives beside the Guadalupe River near Comfort, Texas. As a retired psychologist, she explored the imagined life of the Burro Lady of West Texas in her debut poetry collection, “We Make a Tiny Herd,” earning both the Wrangler and Willa Prizes. Her second collection, “Wingbeat Atlas,” pairs her poems with images by wildlife photographer Ken
Butler, to celebrate our citizens of the sky. “The Place the Spiders Waved” will be released in 2024 by FlowerSong Press. She’s been a Bread Loaf scholar, a Certified Master Naturalist and is known to stare at the river for long periods of time.
Kate Rowe is a freelance writer and editor specializing in gardening, food and children’s books. She studied cooking in France and has more than 20 years of cooking and gardening experience. She pairs picture book recommendations with garden and kitchen adventures @ThePictureBookCook on Instagram.
Lisa Spangler is a software engineer turned artist and lifelong plant nerd living in Austin, Texas. She became a Wildflower Center member 20 years ago and has volunteered for vegetation monitoring and led plant walks. She served two terms as president of the Native Plant Society of Texas’ Austin Chapter. Lisa can be found roaming through nature doing field studies and considers herself a watercolor wanderer — make that a wonder-er — because watercolors never fail to fill her with joy and wonder, even when they’re misbehaving.
Materials are chosen for the printing and distribution of Wildflower magazine with respect for the environment. Wildflower is printed locally in Austin , Texas, by Capital Printing.
UNDERSTORY TREES — typically ranging from 15 to 25 feet high — play an important role in the wild landscape, providing a secondary leaf layer between taller canopy trees and shorter plants. Like insulation, this secondary layer helps keep shorter plants shaded, which in turn keeps soil cooler, helping minimize evaporation. Understory trees also provide food and shelter for wildlife, not to mention additional texture and color, so these plants have a rightful place in the home landscape.
“There is a native understory tree for just about any spot” says Leslie Uppinghouse, horticulturist and arborist at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. “Trees that tuck into smaller spaces tend to be easy to care for and small enough to prune with a basic hand or pole saw. I like to think of them as ‘up close and personal’ trees.”
Some better-known native understory trees include redbud (Cercis canadensis), yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) and Anacacho orchid (Bauhinia lunarioides), and they are indeed excellent trees. And there are many more that deserve consideration. Here, some of our experts offer up a handful of interesting and thoughtful recommendations, and we’ve added some basic information from our Native Plants of North America database to round things out.
TEXAS PERSIMMON
Diospyros texana
Texas persimmons are gorgeous small trees. The bark is a light grey that looks and feels soft to the touch. It has a lovely form. The fruit is deep purple — almost black — and a favorite for nearly any animal or bird. It is drought tolerant and disease resistant and can handle very hot sunny spaces as well as some shade. It has an unusually wide range from as far east as Houston all the way to Big Bend, and south into Mexico, and makes for a terrific specimen tree in the landscape.
Leslie Uppinghouse Horticulturalist and Arborist
TYPICAL HEIGHT: 10 to 15 feet
LIGHT REQUIREMENTS: Sun, part shade
WATER USE: Low
LEAF RETENTION: Semi-evergreen, depending on location
EVE’S NECKLACE
Styphnolobium affine
The natural growth form is graceful and elegant, which really shows itself off when planted in dappled shade. In spring, fragrant pink and white flowers appear in cascading clusters. The flowers mature into black legumes that look like a string of black pearls, embodying the common name. Eve’s necklace makes a beautiful specimen tree when given the space to show off.
Amy Medley Lead Horticulturist
TYPICAL HEIGHT: 15 to 30 feet; most grow under 20 feet high
LIGHT REQUIREMENTS: Part shade
WATER USE: Low
LEAF RETENTION: Deciduous
WAFER ASH
Ptelea trifoliata
In the Rue family, this tree can be wider than it is tall and has bright green large leaves which turn a pretty yellow in the fall. Flowers are small, greenish-white in early spring, and the fruit (wafer) is almost round, growing in clusters and fluttering in the wind. It can take moist to dry soil and can grow in full sun as well. All parts are aromatic. And don’t be surprised if you see an increase in swallowtail butterflies visiting your garden, as this tree is the larval host for both giant swallowtail and eastern tiger swallowtail.
Leslie Uppinghouse Horticulturalist and Arborist
TYPICAL HEIGHT: Under 25 feet
LIGHT REQUIREMENTS: Sun to shade
WATER USE: Low
LEAF RETENTION: Deciduous
CAROLINA BUCKTHORN
Frangula caroliniana
Carolina buckthorn can grow in full sun, where it develops dense foliage, but looks its best in dappled shade, where it develops an open, airy, graceful structure. Leaves are dark green and glossy before developing a bright yellow fall color. The berry-like drupes are visible for a long time, gradually turning from pink to red to glossy black. The mixture of ripening fruits — from red to black — is very attractive, and birds love them.
Dick Davis Land Steward
TYPICAL HEIGHT: 12 to 20 feet
LIGHT REQUIREMENTS: Part shade
WATER USE: Prefers more moist soils
LEAF RETENTION: Deciduous
RED BUCKEYE Aesculus pavia
This spring bloomer thrives in dappled shade and leafs-out early, with large, attractive, tropical-looking leaves that are followed by upright clusters of showy red flowers. All parts of this plant are poisonous, but the flowers are prized by hummingbirds, their main pollinator. The leaves drop surprisingly early in the year, so if planted in the back corner of a fenced yard or the background of a wooded area, it will be very showy in the springtime and hidden by the later foliage of other trees and shrubs while dormant.
Dick Davis Land Steward
TYPICAL HEIGHT: 10 to 15 feet
LIGHT REQUIREMENT: Part shade
WATER USE: Medium
LEAF RETENTION: Deciduous
For more tree inspiration or to learn more about any of these trees, visit our Native Plants of North America database, one of the largest databases of its kind, at wildflower.org/plants
Invader’s Arsenal
How invasive plants get — and maintain — their footing by Anna Funk, Ph.D.
A PASSERBY MIGHT NOT FLINCH AT A ROADSIDE DITCH filled with 15-foot-tall reeds, a pond surface choked with lumps of leafy greens, or a field flush with pretty yellow flowers. But invasive species like giant reed ( Arundo donax), giant salvinia (Salvinia molesta), and bastard cabbage ( Rapistrum rugosum) infiltrate not just weedy roadsides, but important natural areas too, displacing native species and altering entire ecosystems for the worse.
and other species to come in and get a foothold. Why not burn King Ranch bluestem in winter? “It just gets thicker and thicker,” he says. Humans have been carting plants and animals across the oceans for centuries, both intentionally and accidentally. Exotic species catch rides in cargo and in ballasts of ships. Seeds stick to hiking boots and lawn mowers. “I’ve been in this field for 36 years,” says Davis. “The problem’s gotten a lot worse, and with Hans Landel and associates ponder the future of giant reed ( Arundo donax).
Larry Gilbert
Adding to the challenge for land stewards, every invasive species is unique. “All the different plants have different timetables and strategies, strengths and weaknesses,” says Dick Davis, the Wildflower Center’s land steward. For instance, one of Davis’ current nemeses is King Ranch bluestem (Bothriochloa ischaemum). He’s found that the invasive grass is highly intolerant of prescribed burning during the heat of summer, a practice that allows native grasses
PHOTO
our increasingly global economy, it will continue to get worse.”
Thankfully, not all exotic species become invasive, which is why you’ve never seen a fallow field taken over by hostas. Ecologists have been studying the differences between the plants that take over and the ones that don’t for centuries.
“All plants, whether native or nonnative, can have highly specific needs that determine their ability to live in a given habitat — whether that’s rainfall, soil type, or even the presence of a disturbance like wildfire,” says Dr. Sean Griffin, director of science and conservation at the Wildflower Center. “With our shifting climate and rapidly changing landscapes, there’s a greater need than ever before for ecological research to better understand how plant communities will respond.”
One way invasive species get an edge is by leaving their natural enemies behind when they leave their home range. For these invaders, hungry herbivores serve an important role in keeping the plant’s populations in check at home. But without these herbivores around, the plants are free to spread and spread. Ecologists call this the enemy release hypothesis. And in some cases, a plant population might quickly adapt to its new, herbivore-free life, reallocating more and more resources from defense to growth and reproduction over each generation.
The good news is, when ecologists identify a key predator from an invader’s home turf — and when it’s a specialist, meaning it only eats the plant in question — the insects can (only sometimes and with great caution) be introduced to keep the invaders in check.
One invasive plant that’s seen successful suppression from biocontrol measures is the aforementioned giant salvinia. Released salvinia weevils have been shown to reduce infestations of the plant by as much as 80 percent. Since the 1980s, the insect has been introduced to at least 15 different countries for biocontrol.
It’s not just herbivores that keep a plant population in check. Plants must compete with their nearest neighbors, too, since sunlight, water, nutrients, and even physical space go to the plant with the competitive advantage. Some plants even take this competition to the next level, launching an active offensive: These are allelopathic, meaning the plants
produce compounds that suppress or kill their neighbors.
Landowners and managers can’t coax a plant to lay down its weapons, but knowing about a plant’s potential toxicity is still helpful for management. For instance, researchers at the University of Brasilia have found that giant reed produces chemicals, concentrated in its leaves, that can be toxic to the seeds and seedlings of other species. That means a land steward would want to remove cut leaves from an infested area whenever possible, rather than leaving them on the ground, if they want to give regenerating natives a fighting chance.
Often these chemicals are so effective because they don’t exist in the local plants. In the invader’s home range, neighbor plants have adapted defenses and weapons of their own. But in the invaded range, the natives are flat-footed. Ecologists call this the novel weapons hypothesis. Likewise, any chemical defenses an exotic plant brings against herbivores or pathogens can also be extra effective in its new home.
These are just a few of the tools in invasive species’ arsenals that allow them to dominate their new landscapes, giving them an edge both on the offensive and defensive. In species’ native ranges, plants have had thousands, sometimes millions of years to adapt to their ecosystems and coexist with competitors, predators, diseases and allies. Taken out of those systems and plopped somewhere new, these adaptations take on new — sometimes devastating — effects.
It’s a lot like Superman. On Krypton, our hero’s home planet, everyone was equal in strength and abilities, and Kal-El (aka Clark Kent) would’ve been an average guy. It’s only when Clark is displaced to planet Earth that he finds himself super-powered compared to the natives. If it had been someone unlike the good-natured Clark, humanity wouldn’t have stood a chance.
FROM TOP giant salvinia (Salvinia molesta) PHOTO Eric Guinther; bastard cabbage (Rapistrum rugosum) PHOTO Karan A.Rawlins; King Ranch bluestem (Bothriochloa ischaemum) PHOTO Max Licher
The Sanctuary in Houston is teeming with life PHOTO Coastal Prairie Conservency
Going Green to the End
Natural burial offers a low-footprint, high-impact resting place
by Melissa Gaskill
BUYING LESS, REUSING AND RECYCLING. Riding a bicycle or taking public transportation to work. Driving a hybrid or electric vehicle. Putting in native plants to save water and reduce the use of chemicals. Shopping locally with reusable bags. Meatless Mondays. Adjusting the thermostat to save energy; maybe installing solar panels.
You likely do a lot to be green in your life. But what about at your death? With a little bit of planning, your burial can be green, too.
GREEN BURIAL
A typical burial in the United States includes embalming with toxic chemicals, a concrete vault that creates carbon emissions, a casket made with multiple synthetic materials, and a plot in a cemetery maintained with herbicides, pesticides, mowing and watering. While there is no official figure, these manicured facilities may cover as much as two million acres nationwide.
For a natural or green burial, there is no embalming, and the person is interred in non-toxic, biodegradable materials, such as a pine box or linen shroud. This allows the body to return naturally to the soil.
“A natural or green burial is a way for a person to make a choice for their end of life that honors Earth. At its core, it’s about care for the environment,” says Bethany Foshée of the Coastal Prairie Conservancy, which recently established a conservation cemetery, Nature’s Burial, on its property west of Houston. Conservation cemeteries follow the most stringent green burial practices, incorporated into a larger plan of habitat restoration and land preservation.
“We’re creating a natural park space that wouldn’t exist otherwise,” says Foshée. The sale of burial plots financially supports the stewardship of these properties.
“The money you pay for a burial helps manage that land and the flora and fauna there with conservation practices such as curbing invasives, protecting any endangered species, and restoring the land to a more natural state,” says Sam Perry of the Green Burial Council, which certifies natural and conservation cemeteries.
Eloise Woods, a natural cemetery near Bastrop, Texas, consists of almost 10 acres of native landscape. “It has all sorts of different
plants and wildlife, and we try to keep it that way,” says caretaker Campbell Ringel. “The goal is to create a nice home for the flora and fauna that are supposed to be there.”
Natural burial is hardly a new idea. In cultures around the world, it is common for family members to care for the body of a loved one and bury them on family land or in local cemeteries, and this was standard practice in the United States until the Civil War. During that war, a significant number of people died in far flung places, but families still wanted to bring a loved one home for burial. That created the need for a way to preserve a body for travel and gave rise to a new profession, the undertaker, who took on those tasks.
Green burial offers a return to the tradition of family involvement, Foshée points out. “Everyone did natural burial. People had great-grandparents buried on family land. We bring that back. Family members and friends can hand dig or close a grave if they want. They can build the box. They can come and help with restoration activities in the future.”
“People sometimes are surprised by how comforting it is to have that connection to their loved one and the earth when laying them to rest,” says Ringel. “We often have people come in who have never experienced a natural burial, who are there for a friend or family member, and it resonates with them more than they expected.”
It is not for everyone, though, she adds.
“If you’re not comfortable with bugs or wildlife, or you want something perfectly manicured, this is not that,” she says. “And that’s ok. But if you allow yourself to think outside the box and more organically, to let nature take its
course, it is a comforting and meaningful way to say goodbye to someone or to make your own last choice an environmental legacy.”
A natural burial can cost less, with no charges for embalming, a burial vault, headstone or expensive casket.
But that is not always the case. “The biggest expense is the burial space itself, and they tend to be more expensive in a natural cemetery,” Perry cautions. That’s because the maintenance is different, and burials may not be allowed in sensitive areas. Gravesites tend to be larger and spaced farther apart as well.
Plots at Nature’s Burial, for example, average 10 by 15 feet and 10 by 10 feet, while those at a conventional cemetery are 4 by 8 feet, Foshée says. “A bigger plot allows a lighter footprint on the land at the time of burial.”
Cost also depends on whether the family involves a funeral home or handles most of the arrangements themselves. If the family prefers to do the former, Foshée says it is important to let the funeral home know as soon as possible that it is a natural burial and to connect
them with their chosen natural cemetery. Preplanning is the best way to ensure that a person’s natural burial wishes are honored.
WHAT ABOUT CREMATION?
Cremation recently has become more popular in the United States than traditional burial. But while it may not require a lot of space and accoutrements, cremation is hardly green.
The process requires more than 1,800 degrees of heat to be sustained for two to three hours, which uses a lot of fuel and releases more than 400 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — the equivalent of driving 470 miles in a car. It also creates toxic emissions, according to the Green Burial Council, including volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and heavy metals.
While any burial method will have some environmental impact, natural burial likely has the least, according to Perry. And returning naturally to the soil to nourish wildflowers and trees seems a fitting end for those who lived green.
Eloise Woods Natural Burial Park, just east of Austin PHOTO courtesy Campbell Ringel
Sestina for Silver Ladies
by Lucy Griffith
Bald Cypress, you reign from towers of silver. Icy fronts copper your rusty needles, then summer’s thick greens hide each nest. Windstorms toss about your boughs like angry lovers shouldering in bed. Should we name you in each weather?
All your kin leveled for shingles, weatherproofing. Now you’re back, slow-growing silver, fluting a canopy over the river, its beds of drifting fish. Seed globes nestle in needles among your pecker-drilled boughs, where each cavity hides a home called Nest.
Cradling raven’s bed-sized nest in a crotch, or doves tucked from weather oh queen of habitat, take a bow. For your length is robed in silver, above the river, cinnamoned with needles, while Monarchs roost to make their beds.
Disrobed in winter, bare above the riverbed, your limbs shine like bones, reveal each nest. Do you miss the birds? Yearn for lacy needles? Or do you revel in all weathers? I, too, am bare and turning silver relearning to straighten, unbowed.
With the right name, would you take a bow, lean into the current, wet roots in their beds, show all your scars in their silvered scabs? Let the waters eddy in your nest of knees, celebrate each turn in the weather. Let us bundle and plait a braid of needles
for your crown. For those tender needles grew from purple threads, catkins on each bough, draped and hung to ride the weather pollen thick as smoke, to put to bed a globe of seed that floats to a new nest down the mercury river, lit with silver.
The rust color of your needles covers my bed. The finest of your boughs holds hawks nest. Yes silver queen, you declare the weather.
Flashy Fruits
A quick guide to our favorite natural ornaments.
by Elizabeth Standley
Illustrations by Lisa Spangler
WITH HOLIDAY PARTIES ON THE horizon, it’s officially bauble season — and Mother Nature is accessorizing accordingly. Showy fruits and sculptural seedpods have picked up where blooms left off, adding visual interest to native plant gardens throughout Texas. Here’s a quick guide to help you ID a few of our favorites.
RATTLEBUSH
ALAMO VINE
AMERICAN LOTUS
Nelumbo lutea
Dry, round, flat-topped receptacle contains several seeds and should not be viewed by those with trypophobia
Large, tuberous roots can be baked and eaten like sweet potatoes
Pale yellow flowers with rich gold centers unfurl during the day, May – Sept.
Telltale trait: Aquatic plant found in still bodies of water
Merremia dissecta
Sesbania drummondii
Member of the pea family (Fabaceae) with edamameesque pods
Reddish-yellow flowers dangle from threadlike stems June – Sept.
Two- to ten-foot-tall perennial with smooth bark
Telltale trait: Seeds rattle when pod is shaken, hence the common name
DEVIL’S CLAW
Proboscidea louisianica
Sprawling, low-growing annual with large, heart-shaped leaves
Pale pink or purple flowers with yellow and purple spots appear May – Sept.
Fleshy fruit falls off to reveal inner woody shell with a long, curved beak
Telltale trait: Shell splits into two “claws” that catch on the feet of wildlife
Twining, climbing member of the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae)
Large white flowers with dark burgundy centers take center stage May – Nov.
Intricately divided, dark green foliage sheds as fruit appears
Telltale trait: Brown seed capsules with plump centers and four “petals” resemble flowers themselves
HORSE APPLE
Maclura pomifera
Medium-sized tree with short, often crooked trunk
Feathery inflorescence appears on fruit of female trees April – June
Some wildlife eat the hard fruit, but it’s a no-no for humans
Telltale trait: Conspicuous fruit looks like a giant chartreuse tennis ball
YOUR SECRET HIDEOUT AWAITS
Explore a collection of unique forts by local designers in our Luci and Ian Family Garden. Free with admission — always free for members! Oct. 4, 2024 - Feb. 2, 2025
Lynda Robb | Luci Johnson and Ian Turpin
Laura and John Beckworth | Carolyn and Jack Long | Heather Petkovsek | Nancy Taylor
Same Players, New Team
New Texas Field Station Network is building a stronger research community, one connection at a time
by Addie Broyles
McDonald Observatory stands proudly on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains.
PHOTO Nolan Zunk
AN ECOSYSTEM ONLY FUNCTIONS when the diverse components within it are working together.
That’s also the idea behind the newly established Texas Field Station Network, an inter-agency partnership between seven University of Texas at Austin field stations, spanning from the high desert of West Texas to the coastal plains of the Gulf Coast.
Establishing these field stations under one umbrella means the people who run the sites can share expertise and create new opportunities for collaboration and co-learning within a number of colleges and fields of study, according to Texas Field Station Network Managing Director Ken Wray, who teaches in the Department of Integrative Biology at UT Austin.
“We are looking for ways to integrate research, not just ecological or biological, but geological or even architectural,” Wray said.
Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin
PHOTO Larry Gilbert
Last year, Wray also took the reins at Brackenridge Field Lab, so he splits his time between overseeing the oldest field station in The University of Texas System and developing this nascent ecosystem of field station managers, faculty and researchers. The network was inspired by the University of California Natural Reserve System, which connects more than 40 reserves, some as small as an acre, that have been used as research sites since as early as the 1930s.
Although the UT Austin System doesn’t have as many field stations as the UC System, the burgeoning Texas network includes a remarkable diversity of participating sites: the Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas; the McDonald Observatory outside Fort Davis; the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Brackenridge Field Lab in Austin; the Stengl Lost Pines Biological Station outside Smithville; the White Family Outdoor Learning Center in Dripping Springs; and the newest addition, the Hill Country Field Station, which was established in 2023 thanks to a gift
from the Winn Family Foundation, which also provides ongoing support for the Field Station Network as a whole.
In the first year, Wray met with field station site managers to get a sense of their needs and their strengths, and now he’s forming committees to focus on special areas, such as education and outreach, or developing standard operating procedures that can be used at all the sites.
Now in its second year, the network is still in its infancy in many ways, but field station managers are working together to conduct prescribed burns and develop dark sky and invasive species management plans that are already having a significant impact on these critical research sites.
BLAZING A PATH TOWARD FIRE SAFETY, DARK SKIES
One of the first sites to get a boost from the network was the McDonald Observatory outside Fort Davis, which, like many observatories around the world, is located in a mountainous
Scientists — and student scientists — explore the new Hill Country Field Station.
PHOTO courtesy of UT Austin
The University of Texas Marine Science Institute in the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve
PHOTO Nolan Zunk
region that, in the face of a changing climate, is experiencing an increased risk for wildfires.
The UT Austin Fire Prevention Services asked Matt O’Toole, the Wildflower Center’s director of lands and operations, to work with Jaime Tissiere, the McDonald Observatory’s fire, safety and security manager on a wildfire protection plan for the Observatory, and with Steven Gibson, site manager at Stengl Lost Pines, on wildfire protection plans and fire mitigation work for both sites.
Now the Observatory’s Dark Skies Coordinator Stephen Hummel is helping the Wildflower Center develop a plan to reduce light pollution at its site. Establishing a dark sky plan also creates a research opportunity for folks like Shalene Jha — a professor of integrative biology at UT Austin College of Natural Sciences and director of academic research at the Wildflower Center — who wants to study crepuscular insects that are active around dawn and dusk and are particularly sensitive to light. She’s already been collecting baseline data about such insects’ behavior that she can use after the Wildflower Center can implement changes to its dark sky plan.
“We’ve been able to study diverse communities, population genetics, and diet for
multiple key pollinators, including a number of bumblebees, longhorn bees and carpenter bees, at several unique field station sites,” she said. “This will allow us to study species loss, individual and colony-level genetic relatedness, and floral preference, which will inform conservation practices in the face of ongoing habitat change in a number of different ecosystems.”
GETTING OUT OF THE RESEARCH SILO
With hundreds of research projects happening within the Texas Field Station Network at any given time, keeping track of and coordinating all these researchers can get complicated, fast. When researchers start new projects, they usually must work with the individual field station managers, but the network will streamline nearly every step of the process.
“We’re trying to avoid reinventing the wheel,” Wray said. Some researchers only need access to a site for a weekend; others might want to use it for several years.
There’s a lot of overlap in research, so the network encourages people to think outside their own departments. One soil sample, for instance, could be used by researchers
studying geography, geology and integrative biology. “Individual researchers often get siloed,” Wray said. “But you can’t be a jackof-all-trades.”
Field station research typically involves large datasets, and that data can get messy fast, Wray said. If researchers can share best practices for collecting and managing data, they can help future researchers who might be conducting related work. Establishing standard operating procedures and even standard safety protocols will also make these studies more effective.
“Before GIS (Geographic Information Systems), someone might nail a tag in a tree to mark where they took a measurement, but then the tag falls off,” Wray said. “We are always cleaning up dark data from reports that were typewritten or even handwritten.”
Digitizing and organizing records is a huge job that the field station network could make a little easier by creating common
procedures and technology to store them. Wray is also hoping to add a full-time data management staff member who can organize and make data available to other researchers so the network can minimize the impact on the field stations.
With his background at the long-running Brackenridge Field Lab just west of downtown Austin, Wray is always thinking about the legacy of research projects, some of which are entering their seventh decade. “We have populations of fish [in our research facility], for example, that no longer exist in the wild,” Wray said. Maintaining these isolated populations takes a level of support that many field stations wouldn’t be able to sustain on their own for that long.
One way they can help each other is by comparing notes on how they decide what kind of access to grant different researchers so the site is not negatively impacted. “Each field station manager has to decide what level of
Sea turtle care at the Marine Science Institute PHOTO courtesy of Amos Rehabilitation Keep
traffic and manipulation they are willing to allow and what projects they are going to prioritize,” O’Toole said. Too many researchers can overload an ecosystem.
Gibson, who has managed the Stengl site for nearly 20 years, said that this field station has already benefitted from what he called “the multiplayer effect.” Few people outside the College of Natural Sciences knew about this field station about an hour outside of Austin
can we make it better?” Now, Gibson is part of a group of field station managers who are asking each other that question and who are dedicated to finding new ways to meet those needs and help each other.
NETWORKING FOR THE LONG RUN
Wray has never overseen an inter-agency network like this one, but he’s pulling from his experience in the field as a scientist. “Cross-
until the network was announced, but now, with this increased visibility, Gibson is working with researchers from other departments, including Geosciences and Physics.
Gibson said it’s been a big boost to have access to an even wider breadth of knowledge, just as the researchers benefit from access to all those different habitats. “Along with that has come much-needed funding, and it also has us thinking about developing more robust outreach programs,” he said.
This shift has Gibson thinking about Casey Stengl, the Wharton, Texas doctor who donated the land for Stengl Lost Pines in the early 1990s. She knew the power of collaboration and would have loved to see the fruits of this kind of a network. Until her death in 2018, Stengl would ask, “What do you need? How
fertilization is the only way forward,” Wray said. Collaborative research, shared experience, public-private partnerships — these are all critical to the success of each of the individual sites. Most of the field stations are open only to researchers, but several of them, including the Wildflower Center, have a steady stream of visitors who come to learn about the things the scientists are studying. “We’ve had to learn about doing both land management and research on a site that also has mass attendance, so we can share some of those challenges and solutions of managing all three with other sites,” O’Toole said.
Sites with strong outreach and education programs are already helping each other. The Marine Science Institute recently hosted several Wildflower Center employees
Interns at the Wildflower Center
PHOTO Wildflower Center
who visited the newly renovated Patton Center for Marine Science Education.
After being hit by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, the Marine Science Institute had to renovate its education center, and now they’ve reopened with eight aquaria and lots of hands-on exhibits that make it a family-friendly educational destination. The lessons they’ve learned while developing this outreach center will be helpful to the newer sites.
Thanks to the network, the Marine Science Institute now also has a prescribed fire plan for a 500-acre tract of grazed pasture near Refugio, which O’Toole is also helping transition to tallgrass coastal prairie.
“These are carefully and thoughtfully growing relationships,” O’Toole said. “We have to figure out ways where we can actively help each other.”
O’Toole sees a lot of growth potential in the network, especially as The University of Texas System expands. With the network in place, field station managers can reach out if they need anything, but “it’s also a matter of reaching out saying, ‘Y’all need help with anything?’”
The field station network’s site managers currently meet quarterly, and O’Toole and Wray are looking for ways to bring more folks together, including field trips to different sites, which will become particularly useful as these two newest sites — the White Family Outdoor Learning Center and the Hill Country Field Station — break ground on their facilities.
Wray is already thinking about how the Wildflower Center, which was built on an ecologically sensitive area using engineering and architecture strategies to increase rainwater catchment, can help these newer field stations be as ecologically efficient as possible.
Field stations, with their ongoing maintenance and operational costs, can often bear the brunt of system-wide budget cuts, but Wray said the network will help prevent those shortterm issues from affecting long-term studies.
As it stands today, the network is creating new ways to support scientists across the state to learn more about the changing ecology of Texas, while also preserving these field stations for future generations of researchers.
A group pauses at the Stengl Biological Research Station in Smithville, Texas.
PHOTO Larry Gilbert
TAKE IT OUTSIDE
The Benefits of Hands-On, High-Touch
Outdoor Education BY KATE ROWE
Young students pause to admire native blooms. PHOTO courtesy Plant Community
WWhen you think of a classroom, you probably conjure up a room with four walls, inside a school building, with neat rows of students sitting in chairs behind desks. But a growing movement led by outdoor education proponents asks: why can’t a classroom be a dark cave, a sun-warmed stone patio, a vegetable garden, or even a meadow of wildflowers in bloom? These outdoor settings are not simply places for potential recreation and relaxation, but also innovative sites for education.
Outdoor learning settings offer direct engagement with nature and a tactile, sensory experience. Studies show that spending time outdoors helps kids focus more when they return indoors and helps reduce stress and anxiety. Furthermore, learning outdoors can help bring greater understanding of our place in the world and impact on it, along with opportunities to protect and sustain the environment.
“The connections you make in nature are universal to all learners,” says Dr. Demekia Biscoe, director of education at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Wonder, discovery, growth, resilience, connection, adaptability, focus, advocacy: these are some of the themes that quickly emerge when you talk with advocates for outdoor education, before even getting into the direct learning opportunities related to subjects like earth science, ecology, biology and hydrology.
Creating opportunities to learn outdoors and improving access to such opportunities is central to the work of the Wildflower Center and other groups in Austin that are passionate about taking learning outside.
Bringing Parks to Public Schools
Outdoor education can mean bringing students into nature. It also can mean bringing nature to students. This is the mission of an Austin-based nonprofit group called Plant Community.
Founded by a team with a combined background in ecological landscape design, early child development, and nonprofit program administration, along with support from Native Son Gardens, a sustainable native landscape company, Plant Community wants to integrate more of the natural world into school and social environments.
“Children study Texas wildflowers and would usually need to plan a field trip to go see them. We want to make it to where they can learn about them in their school’s front yard,” says Charlotte Harrigan, Plant Community’s director of development.
This organization is on a mission to put a park at every single public school in Austin, championing the belief that every child of any age (and adults, too!) can benefit from
being immersed in nature and the opportunity to explore, learn and play in an inspiring and calming outdoor setting.
“Just think of the High Line in New York City or, closer to home, Pease Park and the new Waterloo Park,” Harrigan said. “These all feature densely planted native landscapes that are beautiful, engaging places to play and learn. We aim to bring those successful green spaces into the school environments where children and families naturally spend more of their time every day.”
In the last couple of years, Plant Community has installed parks at Davis Elementary and Gullett Elementary schools, and they have more in the works. Drawing on their native landscaping expertise, the team includes prairies, woodlands, rain gardens, farms, orchards, butterfly gardens, and nature play areas (rather than playgrounds) in their site plans. They incorporate multiple outdoor classrooms with minimal distractions — such as cars, noise and air pollution — in their school parks. They also take into account
learning elevates the experience.
Hands-on
PHOTO courtesy PEAS
seasonality. For example, they might include one area with shade for use during the warmer months, and another in a sunnier meadow for the cooler days in winter.
Plant Community is working to fully fund projects for Title 1 schools with donated funds. And for all other public schools, the group will help guide community fundraising efforts to cover the costs of materials and labor.
Plant Community’s seasonal scavenger hunts engage students and the community through the discovery of seedlings, blooms, insects and other natural attractions in the space, with colorful reference photos to help identify things like American beautyberry flowers, cicada exoskeletons, and little bluestem seedlings.
“Learning outdoors provides schoolchildren who may not have access to safe, vibrant outdoor spaces at home the opportunity to breathe fresh air, get energy out, regulate emotions by engaging with living things in open spaces, rest and recharge, and interact with nature,” Harrigan says.
More outdoor learning space means more opportunities to learn, grow and fall in love with nature, leading to greater understanding of and caring for our environment.
Putting Nature in the Lesson Plan
Creating the spaces for outdoor education is one step; integrating the outdoors into an existing curriculum is another. Such is the mission of Partners for Education, Agriculture, and Sustainability (PEAS), a nonprofit organization committed to cultivating joyful connections with the natural world through outdoor learning and edible education.
PEAS outdoor and edible education specialists partner directly with classroom teachers in elementary schools in the Austin area to lead outdoor lessons. The organization worked with 34 schools and 4,500 students during the 202324 school year. PEAS educators see the same classes and students over the course of the year, teaching them 12 to 14 lessons. The incorporation of this work during the school day creates an opportunity for a deeply engaging academic experience, spanning a three-year curriculum. Because PEAS creates and brings the lessons and materials, the classroom teacher is not obligated to take on additional work.
Lauren Zappone Maples, the founder and executive director of PEAS, noted that the organization piloted an after-school program early on, but she quickly realized that most of the kids had left by that time of day. By partnering with schools to incorporate their lessons into the school day, the PEAS program is more accessible and reaches more students.
“Just by being outside, our students are benefiting. That’s before we even layer in anything academic,” Maples said, noting that time outdoors is “grounding and calming” for students. “But the academic piece is so rich, because it’s naturally hands-on, once you go outside: you can dig, you can touch, you can observe things closely — and slowly, which we aren’t doing very well these days.”
Learning these lessons outdoors with different materials and sensory stimulation helps students engage with the subject matter in new and different ways. Lessons can take place in a vegetable garden, a pollinator garden, a wildlife habitat, or any other outdoor spot on the school campus. PEAS educators are experts at knowing their campuses and adapting based on what the outdoor conditions might bring on
Students gather to witness nature’s magic.
PHOTO courtesy PEAS
any given day: where to find the shade on hot days, where to find dry spots on wet ones. No two lessons are ever the same.
Why is it so important to give kids rich, deep outdoor experiences? “So they feel passionate about some aspect [of what they’re learning], whether it’s insects or plants or soil or eating the food that they’ve grown. [Once] they feel like they have experience with that, they can make informed decisions now and later in life,” Maples says.
In addition to their in-school programs, PEAS offers opportunities for families to volunteer and learn together outdoors at the PEAS Community Farm at Cunningham Elementary in South Austin, professional development for teachers, consultations for administrators and PTAs, a guidebook for educators to learn about place-based outdoor learning, and digital lessons that teachers can use as a springboard for engaging students.
Cavernous Learning Opportunities
The Wildflower Center sits on top of a system of caves that flow into the Edwards Aquifer. The true extent of this cave system is still unknown, as only a handful of these caves have been discovered and explored. One of the caves, located just below ground level in the Center’s Savanna Meadow and thus more easily approachable and accessible, has been dubbed “Wildflower Cave” and serves as a hub for cave-related educational programming.
A cave as a backdrop for learning offers deep paths to follow and study. Caves give a glimpse into prehistoric times through a contemplation of their formation over millions of years. They also serve as useful sites for understanding more modern history, including the way in which humans have used such spaces for refuge, burial grounds and even trash dumps. Since 2018, more than 5,000 people have visited Wildflower Cave through the City of Austin Watershed Protection Department’s educational programs. These programs provide lessons on aquifers, groundwater, recharge zones, habitats, how to take action to protect our water resources, and more. A cave as a classroom and setting for learning can mark an unforgettable moment for many students, pairing knowledge with sensory experience and the feeling of discovery. The City of Austin’s Earth Camp, a water quality field science program for fifth graders attending
Title 1 schools, brings more than 1,000 students each year to explore and learn in the cave. Some students have never been on a hike before, so donning helmets and knee pads and venturing into a cave can feel like a radically new adventure.
Jessica Gordon, conservation program supervisor for Youth Education with the Watershed Protection Department, loves how outdoor environmental education fosters a sense of discovery and challenge for these students. Being in a new environment gives kids the opportunity to learn new things about their natural surroundings, but also about themselves and their fellow classmates. “It’s amazing to watch the transformation that some students experience,” Gordon said. “They can naturally have a fear of going into a cave, a fear of dark spaces or tight places, or spiders or snakes or scorpions, or even getting dirty. But then they transform, and they work together to support each other in overcoming their fears.”
While the main message of many cavefocused classes centers on the importance of protecting water resources, other parts of the lessons are flexible, depending on what discoveries students might make, like finding the tooth of a coyote or black bear in the cave, observing a cave cricket, or noticing monarch butterflies while gathering in the outdoor classroom before heading into the cave. “We draw attention to [the students’] own discoveries and try to support whatever they’re excited about,” Gordon said. A virtual cave tour is also available for students who aren’t able to go inside the cave.
The Wildflower Center’s New Outdoor Classroom
With so many classes and groups exploring Wildflower Cave, the area where students gather before entering the cave was being impacted with vegetation loss and increased erosion. This problem led to a joint project between the Wildflower Center and the City of Austin to build a new outdoor classroom that could be used as a staging area for educational cave tours, and which opened for use in the summer of 2024.
“It’s an interesting collaboration that grew organically out of the impact the increased foot traffic was having on the cave and the need for an educational gathering spot,” said Matt O’Toole, director of lands and operations at the Wildflower Center. To carry out this project, O’Toole worked closely with a team
from the City of Austin, including Jessica Gordon and landscape architect Drew Sloat, as well as environmental designer, installer and caver Rich Zarria.
An extreme amount of care was taken every step of the way in this project. “Since we’re building this stonework project in the environmentally sensitive Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, we picked a location on the landscape that minimizes impact to the cave and the surrounding sinkholes,” Gordon said. “We wanted it to blend into the natural landscape.”
Zarria selected and puzzled together the seven large flat boulder rocks that form the patio floor, and he carefully arranged the semicircular formation of seat boulders, which were sourced from the reserves of materials the Wildflower Center collected when Austin’s MoPac Expressway was built decades ago. The handpicked boulders not only make good seats for one or more students and their cave gear, they also showcase natural features that are regularly incorporated into the lessons.
For example, holes that have been dissolved in the limestone show easy pathways for water to enter the aquifer. “Not only will students be looking at the cave and learning about it, but they can learn about the karst in the limestone while they’re on the patio,” Zarria said. “It’s not just a space for them to learn, but they’re literally sitting on a thing to learn about.”
Wildflower Center staff experts curated a seed mix of wildflowers and grasses for the meadow surrounding the site and planted six hand-collected oak trees in a ring around the classroom, which will provide shade in the future as they grow.
Groups learning about the cave will appreciate the new Wildflower Cave Outdoor Classroom as part of their experience as they gather and prepare for their cave adventure, and the outdoor classroom space can be seen and appreciated by any Wildflower Center visitor.
The Wildflower Center’s cave initiative is one component of an overall approach to create engaging outdoor learning opportunities for a range of students. With an extensive background in middle school science education and school administration, Biscoe knows how to engage students of all ages and strives to create educational experiences that spark what she calls “the little kid wonder, but also the big kid wonder” of learning something new. “Engaging everyone to wonder, and to ask questions,” she says. “People can — and should — wonder together.”
As the Center’s Director of Education, Biscoe encourages students to think about their impact on nature as well as how nature impacts them. “There are lots of teachable moments here about being kind to nature. I say ‘nature aware’ a lot when I talk to school groups, to be aware that
Students gather at the Wildflower Center’s new outdoor classroom.
PHOTO Jessica Gordon
you’re in a habitat. You’re in someone’s home,” she says. “Treat someone’s home the way that you would want visitors to treat your home.”
Biscoe is eager to find ways to engage more people and to incorporate technology into outdoor exploration and learning. She and her team recently partnered with Families in Nature to create a place-based virtual outdoor learning program called Ecologist School. It’s in line with the tenets of outdoor education: versatile, accessible, flexible and respectful of the environment (no paper printing impact). Think of it as a self-guided field trip for families, teachers and students as they explore the Wildflower Center. Participants can choose challenges in various branches of science from astronomy to herpetology, learn new facts, and earn badges.
Teaching outdoors requires confidence, trust and flexibility. Conditions can be unpredictable,
and things don’t always go according to plan. “When they do, it’s beautiful, when they don’t, it’s still a teachable moment,” says Biscoe.
The rewards are great, and the stakes are high: in the face of future challenges related to climate change, giving children more time outdoors and showing them how to care for the environment feels like one of the most important things we can devote energy to.
By expanding the idea of what a classroom can be — whether it’s a prairie, a cave, a creek, a limestone arch, a butterfly garden — we open ourselves up to wonder, to discovery, to falling in love with nature … and to being moved to protect our environment. Biscoe hopes Wildflower Center visitors “look around and feel this place is magical, because it is wild. It is nature driven. It isn’t just beautiful, it’s also inspiring, and thought provoking, in all the right ways.”
RESOURCES FOR OUTDOOR LEARNING
City of Austin Watershed Protection Youth Education Programs: austintexas.gov/watershed/YouthEd
Families in Nature Ecologist School: ecologistschool.org/park/wfc
Partners for Education, Agriculture, and Sustainability (PEAS): peascommunity.org
Plant Community: plant-community.org
Wildflower Center: wildflower.org/learn
Young cavers explore a cave at the Wildflower Center. PHOTO Jessica Gordon
Jonathan and Jessi, Wildflower Center Science and Conservation staff members, collecting Texas almond PHOTO Sean Griffin
KINFOLK
Protecting the wild relatives of plums, cherries and almonds (Prunus spp.) across Texas by Dr. Sean Griffin & Jonathan Flickinger
IF YOU VISIT THE PRODUCE AISLE OF ANY GROCERY STORE in the United States, you know what to expect: bunches of bananas, stacks of oranges, apples, cherries, and maybe a couple dozen other familiar fruits and vegetables. In fact, despite regional differences in some of the specific types and varieties, chances are that you would recognize most of the fruits and vegetables almost anywhere you go in the world. Out of the roughly 370,000 known plant species, only about 250 are considered fully domesticated (dependent on and bred by humans over thousands of years 1), and of these, only 20 crops make up about 95% of the plants we eat!2
What you won’t find in the grocery store — but might see on a hike — are the many undomesticated relatives of the crops we love to eat. For every species of domesticated crop, there may be many “Crop Wild Relatives,” as they are called, and there are about 11,000 worldwide that could be useful for plant breeding and human consumption. 3 These species generally don’t contain the caloric or nutritional value of their domesticated cousins, but instead may present other benefits through their hardiness in the face of extreme weather, resistance to pests and disease, or adaptations to local soils and growing environments. 4 These benefits can be important as farmers try to navigate the problem of producing enough food in our changing world. Crop Wild Relatives can be used in the diversification of our agriculture, including the establishment of new, locally adapted plant species for food production and introduction of beneficial genetic diversity into existing crops. Thus, in recent years there has been a concerted effort in the plant conservation world to identify these useful Crop Wild Relatives, protect them, and conduct research
to better understand how they can be used to strengthen our existing agricultural systems.
One genus of plants, Prunus, contains several of our most important (and tastiest) domesticated fruit and nut trees, including almonds, cherries, peaches and plums. In addition to these domesticated trees, about 30 native species of Prunus are found in the United States, many of which produce sweet, edible fruit and could be good candidates for future crop breeding programs. However, some of these valuable plants are rare in the wild and generally underrepresented in botanical gardens, necessitating urgent action to protect them.
According to a recent assessment by the North American Fruit and Nut Tree (NAFANT) Crop Wild Relative Working Group, Texas is home to several Prunus species identified as highest priority for conservation and propagation. So this past spring, with herbarium records in hand and our truck filled with various toolsof-the-trade, the Wildflower Center’s Science and Conservation team hit the road. In our sight was one uncommon Prunus species, the Texas almond (Prunus minutiflora).
After scaling steep bluffs, lurking along road-
sides, and carefully explaining to landowners that we weren’t up to anything nefarious, we managed to collect seeds and cuttings from nearly a dozen populations of Texas almond, and to locate and plan collections for two other species (Prunus texana, the Texas peachbush, and Prunus serotina var. eximia, the escarpment black cherry). In the coming year, we plan to use this collected material to start an all-new grove of Prunus at the Wildflower Center, and eventually expand our conservation efforts to include all 14 Prunus species in Texas. Through these and other efforts to protect Crop Wild Relatives, we hope that our incredible Texas biodiversity will one day contribute to a more diverse and resilient food supply.
1. E. Von Wettberg, T. M. Davis, P. Smýkal, Front. Plant Sci. 11, 591554 (2020).
2. Parry, M. et al. World Food Programme (2009).
3. N. Maxted, N. & S. Kell. FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2009).
4. C. K. Khoury et al., Crop Science. 53, 1496–1508 (2013).
LEFT Texas almond cuttings in soil PHOTO Jonathan Flickinger, RIGHT Escarpment black cherry in fruit PHOTO Melody Lytle
CENTERED: Ten Questions with Julie Marcus
Here, we highlight individuals who significantly contribute to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s mission of inspiring the conservation of native plants.
Julie Marcus retired from the Wildflower Center in February after 30 years. She started at the Center’s original site in East Austin in 1994 as a volunteer and joined the full-time staff shortly thereafter. Julie’s mark is everywhere, as she was a significant contributor to our gardens and the experience you enjoy today. We’re grateful for Julie’s expertise, passion and can-do energy, and we celebrate her life’s work.
What recharges you? Being outside and active, whether it’s gardening, hiking or enjoying nature.
What’s your favorite native North American plant? My favorite plants are the salvias, especially mealy blue sage (Salvia farinacea) because of its bright blue color. I love the varied colors of the species, their toughness, and how they attract pollinators.
What prompted you to become a gardener? I couldn’t avoid it! I come from a family of gardeners and plant lovers, which prompted a fascination with plants and how to grow them.
Mountains or ocean? This will be no surprise to those who know me. I love the ocean! Being near the water heightens my senses, relaxes me and makes me feel at peace.
What’s your favorite wild bird? Wrens. They are busy, fussy and don’t miss a thing.
Is there anything that frustrates you about gardening? When — despite my best efforts — I can’t figure out how to make a plant grow under cultivation.
Favorite country outside of the United States? England. I love how most houses — no matter how small — always have a garden plot or containers with something growing in them.
Your favorite tree? Southern magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora). I love the large, deep green, leathery leaves with rusty color underneath, and the beautiful, fragrant white flowers.
What is your favorite book about nature, gardening, plants, animals or anything related to the natural world? I loved animals as a kid, especially horses. There were many authors who wrote about horses, but I would pick “Black Beauty” by Anna Sewell. It gave me a deep compassion for not only horses but for all animals.
Your favorite garden in the world? Other than the Wildflower Center, I love Limahuli Garden and Preserve on the island of Kauai. This beautiful garden showcases native Hawaiian plants and is a pu’uhonua, or traditional Hawaiian place of refuge, where the land is managed through indigenous traditions.
PHOTO Joanna Wojtkowiak
CENTERED: Things We Love
iOverlander
The digital tools Wildflower Center staff lean on, again and again, for information about plants, wildlife and the natural world.
iOverlander is my favorite app to see and review camping spots near me. You can look at a map of anywhere in the world and see what camping spots are around. My favorite feature is that you can see comments from others who have stayed at these places and hear their testimonies as to the amenities, safety and prices.
Heather Cullen Guest Services Coordinator
iNaturalist
I use this app almost daily to identify bugs and plants. The app initially attempts to ID your photo based on their database. If you upload your image, it works to further identify the subject through crowdsourcing. I like that all my identifications are saved in my account so I can reference them later or review everything I’ve seen in the past.
Amy Medley Lead Horticulturist
Native Plants of North America wildflower.org/plants
The most useful and inclusive plant database I have ever used. I use the combination search functionality to create garden plans. It uses the color, height, and bloom time data to display combinations of plants that thrive together in the landscape.
Leslie Uppinghouse Horticulturist and Arborist
Seek
The Seek app, created by iNaturalist, offers all the community scientist fun of iNaturalist, but in a simpler interface for younger learners. Seek lets users interact with others to identify plants and wildlife while cataloging and tracking organisms for research purposes. Seek offers kids a hands-on research experience.
Dr. Demekia Biscoe Director of Education
Avenza
For hikes, the Avenza app is good for downloading maps that you can reference offline, if you are in an area that doesn’t have Wi-Fi service. The maps are user-uploaded and look different based on the creator. Some have trails more obviously highlighted than others, and your location shows on the map.
Maggie Delamater Administration Assistant
Starwalk
Point your camera at the sky, and the Starwalk app will show you what constellations, planets and stars are in your line of sight, right on the screen. It’s an immediate and easy way to see what’s right out there in front of you, in space, at any given time — night or day.
Scott Simons Director of Marketing and Communications
Balcones Resources
Capital Printing Company | Lady Bird Mixer Co.
Phyllis Browning Company | Texas Coffee Traders
ThermoFisher Scientific | Tito’s Handmade Vodka
GIFTS OF NOTE
Gifts of note can include donations of cash, real estate and appreciated stock, and we gratefully acknowledge these generous gifts and their donors:
Lynda Robb $101,000 in support of our Dinosaurs Around the World and Fortlandia exhibitions, and Lynda’s Library
Jeanie and Tom Carter $286,000 towards Science and Conservation programs
Tommy Morgan and family
$25,000 for the dedication of a Hall of Texas Heroes oak tree, in remembrance of Virginia Gail Morgan
Sharon Barrett $100,000 in support of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center annual fund
The Eugene McDermott Foundation $1.3M towards the renovation of the 19th-century McDermott Center carriage house and gardens
Winn Family Foundation
$250,000 towards Science and Conservation programs
Celebrate the birthday, anniversary or life of a loved one by dedicating a garden bed, tree or bench in their honor. Your tax-deductible gift will directly support our mission to inspire the conservation of native plants.
Getting scrappy in the garden benefits your pocketbook and more by
Andrea DeLong-Amaya, Director of Horticulture
GARDENING IS FOR EVERYONE, and no one should be excluded from its benefits due to limited cash flow. Perhaps your wallet feels too thin to justify shelling out bucks for your yard, patio or balcony. If you rent, it might seem like a waste of money to put plants into a piece of ground you’ll eventually part ways with. If you can relate, the Horticulture team at the Wildflower Center offers some resourceful suggestions.
Susan Prosperie with reused and upcycled containers for plants
PHOTO Joanna Wojtkowiak
ASSESS WHAT’S ALREADY THERE
Starting with plants, “don’t pull ‘weeds’ out until you identify them as such,” cautions Horticulturist Hannah Armstrong. “I’ve found treasures in my tiny yard like prairie parsley, pink evening primrose, milkweed, and bluebonnets.” Native Plants of North America (NPONA), the Wildflower Center’s online plant database, and free apps like iNaturalist are great tools to help you identify your mystery plants. “And,” Armstrong adds, “checking out books from the library costs nothing.”
TAP INTO YOUR COMMUNITY
Try propagating your own plants from cuttings, divisions, layering or seeds. Build a sharing and giving economy by leaning into your community. Trade with friends and neighbors and attend organized plant swaps — such as East Austin Seed Exchange and Central Texas Seed Savers, which you can learn more about in the previous issue of Wildflower magazine (2024 | Volume 41, No. 1) — that provide excellent sources for free seeds and other propagules. Be thoughtful to avoid prolific species like Mexican petunia ( Ruellia simplex) or yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) with invasive reputations. Folks making these contributions may not be aware of the destructive nature of these plants on our local ecosystems. If plant propagation is new to you, the Wildflower Center offers classes, and NPONA describes growing techniques for many species. Books such as Jill Nokes’s “How to Grow Native Plants” give further useful information. Thrifty as it is, you can’t beat the satisfaction of growing plants with your very own hands. It’s truly magical. You might even sell any overage at a yard sale to help fund your habit!
BE A BUDGET SHOPPER
Of course, if you do splurge on a rooted plant, those in smaller pots are the most economical and eventually grow to size. Potting mixes might pinch your purse, so “reuse soil from unsuccessful plantings, provided there were no serious pathogens to worry about infecting new plants,” warns Susan Prosperie, plant propagation specialist for the Center. Save on expensive pottery by visiting thrift stores and garage sales. You’ll find clay pots as well as less conventional containers like colanders, stock tanks, and even old boots or purses (just ensure they drain adequately)! Scavenge for building materials such as old bricks or whimsically named urbanite (broken up concrete that can be used like stone) for paths, borders or walls.
STEWARD YOUR SOIL
Horticulturist Leslie Uppinghouse encourages folks to “embrace the soil you have! Do your homework and figure out which plants will be happy in your soil.” Compost kitchen scraps, paper and other organic matter for use in the garden
Hannah Armstrong recommends this book, co-authored by the Wildflower Center’s own Joe Marcus and available in our Shop and Gallery. PHOTO Joanna Wojtkowiak
(while diverting them from the landfill). Uppinghouse adds to “skip store bought mulch, and leave the leaves on the ground,” or mine your neighborhood for bagged leaves or grass clippings to serve as mulch that will enrich your site as they break down. Dense groundcovers and taller plants that blanket the ground, such as Gregg dalea (Dalea greggii ), zexmenia (Wedelia acapulcensis var. hispida) or muhly grasses (Muhlenbergia spp.), serve as living mulches, eliminating the need for seasonal replenishment. They push out weeds and shade the ground from blistering sunlight while enhancing wildlife habitat.
MAKE LONG-TERM INVESTMENTS
When it comes to landscape maintenance, generally this is not where the high costs lie. Thoughtfully selected native plants thrive without fertilizers and use less water and pesticides than conventional non-natives. When possible, plant perennials and shrubs to eliminate lawns that require mowing. This saves on the upfront cost of machines, equipment maintenance, and gas expenses, not to mention fertilizer and water bills. One place where you might want to invest more dollars is on well-made, longer-lasting tools. Uppinghouse advises to “invest in three or four high quality tools and then take good care of them. Sharpen your clippers, for example. It’s easy to do and less expensive than buying new ones. A good set of clippers can last a lifetime if properly cared for.”
Cultivating the land you inhabit is a practice that goes back thousands of years, predating the commercialization of garden materials and paid services. With more resourcefulness than resources, anyone can reap the benefits of gardening at home.
Nature and Knowledge
Master naturalist Carolyn Long’s connection to nature started with her grandmothers, who knew the names of trees, birds and native wildflowers. Carolyn credits the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center with putting her back in touch with what was meaningful to her as a child. To help others benefit from the Wildflower Center’s offerings, she established a planned gift to support educational programs, immersive exhibits and more.
By making a gift to the Wildflower Center through your will, trust or estate plan, you too can help more people connect with nature and create a sustainable future.
to learn more, scan code or call 800-687-4602.
The decision to support the Wildflower Center philanthropically was easy for me and felt like a natural step, coming from a wild girl growing up.”
Carolyn Long Wildflower Center volunteer and docent
Leslie Uppinghouse demonstrates caring for tools to extend their lifetime. PHOTO Joanna Wojtkowiak
Fall happy hours are back! Live Music + Food Trucks + Flowers
Tuesdays, 5 - 8 p.m. Sept. 24 - Nov. 12
Plant People
Plant Punk
Catching up with the internet’s favorite botanist
by Elizabeth Standley
THIS PROBABLY COMES AS A SHOCK, but it’s been a whopping 25 years since Joey Santore lived in the Windy City. The foul-mouthed star behind the popular “Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t” YouTube channel is known for his thick, Chicago accent. It came through loud and clear over Zoom a couple months ago, when we chatted with Santore — who now resides in South Texas — about his punk rock beginnings, do-ityourself approach to plant education, and love of all things wild.
Wildflower Center: You started self-educating about plants when you were piloting diesel trains through the American West. Could you tell us a bit about that time in your life?
Joey Santore: I worked for the railroad for a while, and it was fun. I actually enjoyed the work, and it paid well, and I knew I didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to learn, but the way the American education system is built, college is synonymous with careers and getting a job. I didn’t want that to be the main reason I was going to school. I wanted the main reason I was going to school to be to learn. Once I started working for the railroad, it seemed like that was a more prosperous, at least financially, thing for me. And I liked the nature of the work, too. I started out as a brakeman, then became a locomotive engineer. I used the decent pay to fund my continued education. It got to the point that I was reading textbooks and research papers in the cab of the locomotive, basically using company time — which is the best way to do it — to teach myself.
WC: How did you decide to focus your independent research on plants versus something else?
JS: Plants have always been 10 times more interesting to me than animals. They’re more diverse, they have more evolutionary strategies. They’re much easier to study. They’re right in front of you. They’re all around you. Animals are good at hiding. They’re good at avoiding people. I don’t blame them for it. I try to avoid most people, too. Or I used to. My relationship with people is love and hate. I love people as individuals. But in groups, as social primates, which is what we are, that’s when they disappoint. The conformity. The herd mentality. But as individuals, when you get people alone, that’s where they can really
On gypsum deposits in Nuevo Leon, Mexico with the mycologist Alan Rockefeller looking at a rare species of pipevine. PHOTO Joey Santore
become gems. But anyway, plants have always been more interesting to me. The fact that you can grow something like a redwood from a tiny seed that’s smaller than a pea, and have it live 3,000 years and get the size of 10 boxcars is incredible to me. Animals don’t do that.
WC: What made you decide to go public with your botanical life?
JS: It just came naturally. I’m a loudmouth to begin with and always have been. That’s the Chicago Italian in me. And then I was seeing
such fascinating things, I wanted to share them with people. It felt almost criminal that other people didn’t know that some of these plants existed and that they may not have been able to see them. And then people liked it and kind of demanded more of it, and I was like, “Alright, well, I guess I should keep doing this and sharing it.” And then I realized, “people are actually learning from this,” and that felt good. My mom was a public school teacher, and it feels good. I love teaching people. I spent so much of my life, and I still do, feeling lots of despair about the way the world is. Well, not the way the world is, the way human beings are. And that’s kind of the antidote to it. The antidote to feeling despair about people is watching the excitement in their eyes when they learn something new about the living world around them.
When I was younger, I used to self-publish little zines and stuff, just photocopies of drawings. I grew up listening to punk rock, and that’s pretty common in the punk rock subculture — the sharing of ideas. That’s one of the other hopeful things about humans. We have
the ability to share ideas and discuss things, philosophy and whatever. It just felt good to share things. Social media, for all its ills, can allow for that.
WC: Tell us about your nonprofit, Thornscrub Sanctuary, and the conservation work you do there.
JS: Where I live, in South Texas, is probably one of the coolest and most unique plant ecosystems in the United States, and it’s one of the most disrespected and underappreciated plant biomes that I’ve ever been to. I mean, I’ve seen so much land get cleared and destroyed. It’s common here, as in many other places in Texas, to clear land before you’ve even sold it, because clearing land somehow increases the property value, which is insane to me. Here in Texas, for some reason, and especially South Texas, a barren strip of land with nothing growing on it is somehow more valuable than land that’s still got the intact vegetation on it, which doesn’t make any sense. Having vegetation on land cools it — you’ve got transpirational cooling — and makes it more attractive to most people. The whole mentality here, I think, is just so disconnected from the living world around us. I don’t get it, because that just seems counterintuitive to everything that’s important to me, and it’s counterintuitive to how I live my life.
Thornscrub Sanctuary started as a way to preserve this [unique ecosystem] because not enough is being done. We recently preserved 150 acres of intact habitat that’s never been bulldozed or destroyed. When we originally started this project, we were just thinking of getting land that had already been bulldozed and just replanting it with native plant species. Now, that goal has changed to just protecting something that was never demolished in the first place. Our main goal is to have researchers come visit and study things like the soil microbiome. There’s so much that’s understudied here.
WC: Your work has taken you all over the world. Is there any place that you really love, or hope to visit someday, because you’re fascinated by the plant life there?
JS: I want to go everywhere. The next stop on my list is probably southern Chile. They’ve got those Patagonian cypresses. They’re cousins of redwoods. They can live 3,000 years and get to 200 feet tall. Australia’s got a ton of cool
stuff, I always love going there. I’d like to go back to Namibia again, see Welwitschia mirabilis, which is just a phenomenally cool plant with its own evolutionary lineage. They look like these green mops on the floor of the desert. They grow in fog deserts along the coast of Namibia, southwestern Africa. I’m really attracted to drought-tolerant plants.
WC: Are you also interested in home gardening?
JS: Yeah. I’ve hosted a TV show, actually, called “Kill Your Lawn.” It’s all about bringing nature home. It’s kind of like a more loudmouthed version of what Doug Tallamy is all about. We filmed two seasons of it. It was just me and my friend Al, basically. We went to San Diego, South Florida, South Texas, Chicago, DC and New Orleans, and just helped people kill their lawns, and then figured out what native plants specific to those regions would be good to put in. The whole premise is just that the way we construct our landscapes is impractical. It’s almost deranged. A lawn doesn’t make sense anywhere — whether you live in a place that’s
prone to drought and it takes a lot of water to keep a lawn alive, or you live in a place like the Baltimore-DC region, where you get enough rain to have a lawn, but the roots don’t go very deep. It’s just like pavement [in those places]. It leads to a lot of runoff, a lot flooding.
We’re living in a time where habitat keeps getting destroyed to put up drug stores and big box stores and housing tracts and all that. Being that we can’t stop those acts — we can’t convince our local politicians to build smarter or developers to build smarter — the most we can do right now is kill our lawns and replant what used to be here. When you do that, all the life starts coming back: the cool bugs, the cool lizards, the cool birds. You turn your yard into a classroom to learn about the native ecosystem, and it’s really fulfilling. After a lousy day at work, you come home and you can sit in the garden that you’ve created, the mini ecosystem that you’ve recreated, rather than just sitting down in front of a TV. I mean, you can do that later, but being around these living things feels good because we evolved with them. They’re already in our genome.
This plot in South Texas was cleared more than one year ago, and sits empty of life, awaiting a buyer. PHOTO courtesy Joey Santore
NOV. 22, 2024 - JAN. 5, 2025
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