As of August 20, 2023, the heat and drought conditions that a lot of us shared are here and now and are extraordinary.

I have frequently promoted the usefulness and beauty of a mixed native woody border. I recently took the opportunity to use these ideas in designing and planting my own mixed native woody border.

In a sort of positive flip of the old hands’ contest, “Scissors, Paper, Rock”, instead of how each participant overpowers each other, I see how each component helps the other to do our common job in our environmental construction business: support the client’s needs/wants.

As I have been through my career studying, growing and using trees, shrubs and perennials native to the Gulf South, it has been the people, as well as the plants along the way, that have taught me.

The other day Susan and I were in the canyard and we noted the growth of a new group of Asclepias incarnata, Swamp Milkweed. 

The conversation immediately moved to the Monarch Migration currently at work.  In reference to that butterfly I reminded her, “You know it’s a gateway bug.”  And she responded, “Yes, but to what pathway.”