127. What If We Replaced Every Lawn in San Antonio?

Cory Ames [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the podcast about the people who make San Antonio go and grow. I'm Corey Ames Norling, the producer behind the scenes of this show. But today I'm stepping in as guest host. Don't worry, Bob will be back soon. But I'm honored to sit in this week for a conversation that I think many of you will truly enjoy. I'm joined by Monica Mackley, a San Antonio based author, naturalist, and founder of the Texas Butterfly Ranch and the Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival here in San Antonio. She's the author of the Monarch Butterfly Migration, Its Rise, Fall, and her latest book, which we'll be talking about today, is Plants with Purpose, which is a call to rethink how and why we plant, especially here in San Antonio. I recently joined Monica at her book launch at Nowhere Bookshop, and the room was packed.

Cory Ames [00:00:53]:
The energy made one thing clear. People are craving real ways to reconnect with nature, and not just in big parks or hill country ranches, but right here in their very own front yards. So today we'll be talking with Monica about why the plants we choose matter how our city could look and feel different with just a few meaningful changes, and what anyone can do, homeowner, renter, educator, or neighbor, to help build a greener San Antonio. With that, let's get into the conversation with Monica Mackley.

Cory Ames [00:01:25]:
Welcome to Big City, small town.

Monika Maeckle [00:01:27]:
Well, thank you for having me.

Cory Ames [00:01:28]:
My pleasure. And so first, I'd love to start because I think book projects are really no easy endeavor. As I'm sure you know, it's a really long timeline, research, writing here with this book illustration, back and forth with editors and the publisher. And so I have to feel that an author must be pretty committed. And for me, I think that that starts somewhat with identifying a problem to solve. And so through that lens, I'd love to get started with why Plants with Purpose based off of what problem did you identify was important, Important enough to go into a whole book project about it?

Monika Maeckle [00:02:09]:
Well, this was actually a natural progression from my Monarch book, which, you know, I've been focusing on monarchs for two, two decades now. And in the course of that, just diving in and learning about the ecosystem and everything that makes the butterfly migration happen and why here in San Antonio, we in particular are beneficiaries of being on that Texas flyway. I mean, you can't ignore the impact of what role plants play. And for the monarchs when they migrate, especially in the fall, we notice that they stick to the river systems and the reason they stick to the river systems is that's where the nectar is. Because the only place not dried out 100% in August, September, early October, typically is along rivers. And so when you start looking at that, you just notice how important the plants make, what a huge difference the plants make. And so that was kind of the beginning of my journey with plants with purpose. But as I started paying attention, more attention to plants, I'm like, we're very fortunate to have a little piece of property along the llano.

Monika Maeckle [00:03:12]:
And I just kept running into these crazy looking plants, like, ooh, what's that? And I started to dig in and take pictures and ask my friends, I have some really good friends who were biologists and horticulturists and ecologists and started to learn about these plants. And it became very clear that every plant has a story. You just have to dig. And we often choose our landscapes here in San Antonio and elsewhere just based on beauty alone. And that is no longer enough. I was very much influenced by Doug Tallamy, the biologist who's written several books, including the very impactful Nature's Best Hope, where he proposes that everybody in country take one third of their landscape and convert it to native landscaping. If we did that, we'd have the largest homegrown national park in the world. And one of the things that he talks about in the book, in his book is, you know, what if we planted? You know, choosing plants for beauty alone is like cooking just for sugar and fat.

Monika Maeckle [00:04:06]:
If we just cook for sugar and fat, we'd all be, you know, very unhealthy human beings, and we'd be missing out on a lot of interesting food. And so I took that metaphor for further implants with purpose and basically asked myself, like, to treat choosing plants for the landscape like you're hosting a dinner party. And when you think about it, you know, you're going to go buy plants, you're going to spend money on them, you're going to have them in your yard. It's kind of like hosting a dinner party. Because if you ever hosted a dinner party, you know how much work it is. You've got to, you know, plan for, shop for, cook for, hang out with, clean up after these guests. And so if you're going to host a dinner party, would you only invite guests to your dinner party who are beautiful? Because it would be pretty boring. I mean, first five minutes with Christie Brinkley, I mean, maybe she's interesting, I don't know, but whoever, you know, there's so much more to a person or a plant than what they look like.

Monika Maeckle [00:04:54]:
And we all know that. And so in order to be considered a plant with purpose, I came up with this sort of, you know, strategy. You have to have at least three qualities beyond beauty. You know, can you eat it? Can you make tea from it? This are pollinators of does it have a specific landscaping purpose? Is it drought tolerant? Can it take the heat in the summer? And so if a plant has at least three of those, then it can be considered. And so basically what I've done in the book is profile 25 different plants that fit those criteria and make a great fit for where we live here in San Antonio and hot climates in general.

Cory Ames [00:05:29]:
Well, and I think it's one thing to be speaking with the native plants, plant enthusiasts, or plant enthusiasts themselves, like myself. That might be why I'm sitting here in this conversation with you versus Bob. But what's been maybe your quick pitch.

Monika Maeckle [00:05:46]:
Or.

Cory Ames [00:05:48]:
Conversation point as to what this book is about from what you might identify as someone who's not so bought in, not really part of the choir just yet. How have you talked about this book thus far, even though it's only been officially released for a few weeks now? What has been the difference there between maybe the demographics of potential readers?

Monika Maeckle [00:06:07]:
Well, the book is mostly native plants, but it's not just native plants. It's well adapted plants. And I think people are coming around to the notion that we have to be more considerate about what we put in the landscape. Lawns are really not cool in this part of the world. I think, you know, 50% or I can't remember if it's 60 or 70% of our water use. And that goes toward irrigation. And that's not just, you know, lawns, but also agriculture. But a huge amount of our water resources are devoted to maintaining these landscapes that have absolutely no purpose in this world.

Monika Maeckle [00:06:48]:
In terms of it just looks good. Yeah, everybody loves a lush green lawn. You want to make that grand entrance and, you know, look around and go, wow, this is so gorgeous and lush. Let's go run around in the grass. But that, that grass does nothing for the environment. It doesn't serve pollinators, typically. It requires a huge amount of water a lot of times, fertilizers, pesticides, and time. And it's basically a dead zone.

Monika Maeckle [00:07:10]:
Nothing is thriving there. It doesn't serve insects, it doesn't serve birds. It serves beauty. And that's it. And that's just not enough anymore. You know, as you probably know, we were in stage five water restrictions recently. We went back to, wow, we went back to stage four, but still, you know, Stage four is way beyond stage three, which is on stage two, which is where we usually are. And we all can't water our yards like we used to.

Monika Maeckle [00:07:32]:
And it just doesn't make any sense at all. Frankly. It's irresponsible to have a big lawn.

Cory Ames [00:07:38]:
It's a very important talking point here in San Antonio. And I do think that I see a lot of unused grass. You know, it's one thing if a lawn is. Is well loved and well trodden, you know, and I have two young children myself. And so, you know, if there's a nice lush piece of lawn, they do make use of it. But frankly, in my neighborhood, I see a lot of lawns that are just tightly mowed, but not necessarily walked upon, more so rolled upon with ride on mowers. And so I think it's something that's a really important opportunity for us to address here in San Antonio and so talk more about the plants themselves. I love the metaphor of the dinner party, thinking about, you know, who might be the most interesting and compelling guests, not just, you know, superficially attractive from the outset.

Cory Ames [00:08:29]:
So what should we know more about these? And maybe give us a couple tangible examples that people might start to recognize around San Antonio, specifically, what are some of those plants with purpose that, you know, we might be able to identify in our own. Our own neighborhoods?

Monika Maeckle [00:08:44]:
Well, I think just as important as the ones you might be able to identify are being introduced to new plants that deserve respect, admiration, consideration in your landscape. And I always, you know, make the. Make the sort of comparison. If I was hosting a dinner party with plants like, who would I want to sit next to? And I would definitely want to sit next to jimson weed. And I think jimson weed is the most interesting plant that I've met in my life, probably. And this plant I actually brought. Cory, I don't know if you can show that on camera, but I brought the jimson weed pods with me. These are the seed pods of jimson weed.

Monika Maeckle [00:09:20]:
They're also known as Indian thorn apples, and those grow on the plant, which is this amazing solanache family, which is the same as tomatoes and potatoes and nightshade. And yes, every part of the plant is toxic. You don't want to eat it. That's a very important lesson that we need to teach ourselves and our kids that, you know, don't just eat a plant. But the signal that this thorn apple gives you is like, yeah, you know, probably don't want to Put that in your mouth. It's kind of a signal that it's not tasty and that it's not inviting you to come eat it. But that plant blooms at night. It's incredibly drought tolerant.

Monika Maeckle [00:09:55]:
It loves the heat. It's the host plant of the sphinx moth. So it gets those long caterpillars on it like you get on your tomato plants. It has this beautiful white flower that's incredibly fragrant. I mean, I had it planted when I lived in an apartment in Austin. I had it planted on either side of the walkway. So when you walked in at night, you just get this whiff, this lovely plant. But even more interesting, it's one of the first examples of the botanical warfare in that when the British came over for the American Revolution to Jamestown, Virginia, and the colonists there had learned about jimson weed from the native people there.

Monika Maeckle [00:10:36]:
And so the colonists made this stew out of jimson weed and fed it to the British. And they all got sick and were laid up for like a week. And it bought them time to prepare for war. And so that plant got named Jamestown weed and eventually became known as jimson weed. But even going back further, if you get under the Devil's river, there's photo. There's up photos, cave etchings of the thorn apple where you. It shows native people holding the jimson weed pod and raising it up to the spirits. Like it's a form of communication.

Monika Maeckle [00:11:12]:
So it's been used by native peoples, you know, almost like peyote or something, as a communication device with the spirits. And so one of the things I started doing is when I have a ton of this in my yard, I brought one from the ranch and just like it's taken over and I can just cut it back. So if Jim. So he let me know, because I've got it. But I like to take those thorn apple pods and tie them onto a gift for like, momentous occasion, like an anniversary or birthday, graduation, because it sort of gives you this power bundle, let's call it. Like, it gives you this extra power to proceed forward. So, I mean, that's just one plan. And it has like five or six incredible stories associated with it.

Monika Maeckle [00:11:51]:
There's all kinds of interesting information when you dig into the ethnobotany of each of these plants. And there's a really amazing ethnobotany database that you can go look up any plant that tells you the history of this plant. And you think of that. All the drugs that be used to cure sicknesses all come from plant chemicals. And So, I mean, we don't appreciate plants for what they give the world. I mean, they basically make life on Earth possible. The air we breathe, foods we eat. And yet we don't teach our children the names of plants.

Monika Maeckle [00:12:20]:
They know what a lion or a tiger or a bear is, but they don't know what a jimson weed pod is. They don't know what an aster is. And I find that really counterintuitive. We need to teach kids to appreciate plants, and it needs to be part of our curriculum and our education.

Cory Ames [00:12:33]:
Absolutely. And I think uniquely from that framing you mentioned so multifaceted many of the plants that you mention in the book. But as well, the list could go on and on and on. I'm sure it was hard to come down to 25, but I like that looking at plants through the lens of perhaps, you know, what problem could planting help us solve? Because, you know, it's interesting, especially as we think about, you know, very plainly our food systems, how much food that we transport into San Antonio, the United States, many exotic fruits and vegetables and things like that. Don't get me wrong, a lot of them are good, and we enjoy them. But I do think that as a result of that kind of global food marketplace, we've maybe underestimated the potency of our local plants. There's so many opportunities, I think that we could delve deeper into having more novel delicacies, recipes and plates in the restaurants we have around town. And that was something that I think a lot of people could get into from this book, was the list of recipes that you mentioned throughout.

Cory Ames [00:13:46]:
Take us through maybe a couple of the greatest hits or the favorites. Which ones would you think people really want to check out?

Monika Maeckle [00:13:52]:
Well, one of the plants I really love, again, that I. That I encountered on our ranch property, because we have this. We're right on Atlanta river. And then we have this sort of. We call it River Road. And it's this. You know, there's a lot of soil there, unlike much of the ranch, which is rocks and caliche. And it's very clear that indigenous peoples live there because we find arrowheads all the time.

Monika Maeckle [00:14:12]:
But that whole grove is covered in agarita bushes, which agarita is a berry. It's actually a. Like a wild current. And we started, you know, harvesting these agarita berries and kind of digging in. And you can make tarts out of it. You can make jelly out of it. But one of the things that I learned in researching this book is so many plants, you can make tea from I mean, you can make tea from so many plants that you already have in your yard, like mint or sages or bee balm. But the other thing that you can make, and I've made out of agarita, which is really fun, is a shrub.

Monika Maeckle [00:14:45]:
And I didn't even know what a shrub was until my son, Alex Rivard, you know, he used to be a bartender, explained this to me that, you know, this is like a cool thing that cocktail ologists are doing now where you basically have fruit. And in this case, it could be agavita, it could be any persimmon, it could be any kind of berry or fruit that you have, or it could be herbs. And you take a cup of fruit or herbs, and even if you have, like, a bunch of blueberries at home in the fridge and they're starting to go bad, oh, man. And you use those blueberries. You could mix the blueberries with the mint or with the sage or with basil or whatever you have handy. You get a cup of fruit, a cup of sugar, and a cup of vinegar, and you mash it all together and you let it sip for a day or two, and it makes this kind of syrup sour thing that you can just basically add to anything. You could pour it on gelato, you could, you know, add it to a spritzer. You could put it in your margarita, and it's just like, wow, this is a cool flavoring agent that I didn't even know, and I've got it right here in my yard.

Monika Maeckle [00:15:39]:
So that was really fun to learn about. And, you know, I was digging into this, and I think shrub comes from a word, an Arabic word, which I can't remember the pronunciation of. But, you know, when you say, ooh, do you know about shrubs? And people go, yeah, you mean, like little bushes? Like, no, no, no, with the drink. So. So it's a different thing. But, yeah, there's tinctures, there's syrups, there's shrubs. You can make jelly, you can make pot. I mean, I have a recipe in there for an agarita tart that I made that I usually use strawberries for.

Monika Maeckle [00:16:11]:
But you can just basically substitute the agarita and sprinkling them on anything. I mean, it's like eating currants. So it's nice to know that. You know, it was funny because I was researching this book during COVID and, you know, we all sort of had these sort of doomsday thoughts, like, ooh, what if, you know, the food supplies. I think we need to really explore, you know, our yards and our, and our landscapes to see, like, could we survive? And, you know, it just made me think differently about the world and about the food chain and about feeding the family and feeding myself. And so, you know, I don't think those are, I think those are very useful explorations for all of us.

Cory Ames [00:16:49]:
Absolutely. I think that it makes you value and take an interest in every square foot that you have available on your lot a little bit more than you otherwise would because you put something in the ground and you start to watch how it does. And typically with plants of this variety, the ones that you've identified in this book, they're sort of made to thrive in these conditions where they're strictly native or well adapted. And so I think that the show gets better as time goes on, both in the sense of what the plant does itself and perhaps what you can learn about it. But likewise what starts to enter into your yard, be it, you know, pollinators, bees and butterflies, birds and things like that, or small mammals as we can sometimes have here, depending on where you're at in San Antonio. And so I think that it is, it is a real gift to take a deeper look when otherwise, you know, the lawn, if we're contrasting against that, there's only so much to see.

Monika Maeckle [00:17:44]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:17:45]:
There. And you can tell a real difference.

Monika Maeckle [00:17:46]:
And it doesn't contribute. I mean, that's like this interloper that's just like sitting there looking good. It doesn't give anything back. And I think that's really important, you know that. I mean, there's just so many ways to look at it. Like there's so many attributes that you can find in plants when you choose the right ones. And lawns are just like worthless, honestly.

Cory Ames [00:18:07]:
Yeah.

Monika Maeckle [00:18:08]:
And when you think about the history of lawns, I mean, that was an import from like Scotland and Great Britain where. Yeah. Maybe in those, in those climates where it's foggy and rainy and overcast and it's not 102 degrees in May like it has been here, it might make sense to have a lawn. But honestly, the history of lawns is such that it's basically an aristocratic statement of like, I have all this land and I can just plant a really useless thing to look at and I have people to maintain that. And so it's kind of a statement in a lot of ways. And you know, to see people converting their lawns to native and, you know, well adapted landscape is a really refreshing trend that we're noticing more and more.

Cory Ames [00:18:49]:
Well, speaking to San Antonio specifically, where do you feel like we're at with that trend. Do you feel optimistic, like more people are getting engaged, involved and actually taking action or still early, early, early days?

Monika Maeckle [00:19:02]:
I think it's definitely, it's definitely moving in the right direction. I recently wrote on my website on the Texas Butterfly Rancher. Really inspiring story of some good folks and good friends here in San Antonio and in Chico Newman who, who live on, on a, on a really, you know, well known street of very much legacy large homes with huge legacy lawns with a long driveway, you know the big expanse and the irrigation system. And they finally, you know, converted the entire front lawn to a native landscape of flowers. And like this spring, this yard was just magnificent in the way it was bursting out with wine cup. I haven't been over there lately but they worked closely with Bill Neiman of Native American Seed and did this amazing transformation of this yard of you know, like they could have just sat there and you know, kept watering and doing their thing. But no, they took the initiative and took the step. And for them in that position on that street in it was great because the people surrounding them are very much locked into this sort of lawn, legacy lawn thing.

Monika Maeckle [00:20:11]:
And it was interesting because I think I heard stories where they were approached by what are you guys doing over there? It looks like just a ton of weeds. Like well, maybe sweat a little bit. And now everybody's truly inspired by this landscape and I think they are inspiring other people to do the same thing. And so if you get that generation doing it, I mean the younger generations are definitely know, way more open to this. My friends in the native plant nursery business, you know Donald Gerber Pollinators and Drake White at the Nectar Bar, the first two native native plant nurseries in San Antonio are telling me you they're just getting more and more interest and there's definitely a turning of the tide in terms of the way that people are landscaping. And I think, you know, there's so many factors here but the younger generations are definitely more open to embracing it. And we're still getting a lot of pushback from hoas and people who are just sort of locked into this the way that they think things should look. But it is definitely starting to change.

Monika Maeckle [00:21:10]:
And not to overlook, we have an incredible municipal water utility as saws who has been on the case for a decade or more of like water conservation and landscaping smartly. And they have an entire website that I strongly encourage people to check out called Garden Stylist. Garden Stylist and blank. Yeah, Garden Stylist. They Even have a place on the website where you can go plan the garden. Oh, do you want to flower? What kind of garden do you want? Like little, like worksheets and like plotting maps and top 100 plants for San Antonio. You know, what does it need? How long does it take? Doesn't want shade, does it need full sun? And so like there's just a lot of resources out there. You know what Garden style essay and the native plants society in particular are really great resources.

Cory Ames [00:21:57]:
Yeah, I think that garden style essay one is a really great starter for anyone who just wants to quit because you can do features of like this type of sun, exposure to this type of moisture in the soil or whatever you can get at a surface level specific which will bring you to photos and names that you can take with you to the nursery that I think are quite helpful because easy to feel a bit lost.

Monika Maeckle [00:22:25]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:22:26]:
Overwhelmed in all the information. And I have a problem with, you know, wanting to know more and more and having this perfect assemblage of, of plants before perhaps I step in the nursery. But sometimes what you're looking for, it's not always there and you got to go to the right nurseries. And so you mentioned a couple good ones. The Nectar bar, which is just about in Leon Valley, so northwest San Antonio, outside 410, just, just a little bit. I'm near there. And then the other is the Paula Natives, which is out in Converse, Texas, northwest, kind of far out San Antonio a little bit. But those are wonderful, wonderful resources.

Cory Ames [00:23:04]:
Kind of, I think nicely at opposite ends of town, so whichever one is closest to you.

Monika Maeckle [00:23:09]:
And the big nurseries too, I mean the independent nurseries are more and more stocking native plants. And HEB recently did an incredible promotional thing this spring where they were selling a lot of native plants for very, very aff affordable rates like at their, you know, outdoor nursery displays. It was just these big displays of, you know, bee balm and you know, really good stuff for very affordable prices. So I think the tide's turning and people are getting the message and you know, we're hearing about, you know, the insect apocalypse and the birds. Birds are down. And so I think people are, people are responding. But it is daunting. Honestly, it's, it's a challenge and you know, we just need to keep pushing.

Cory Ames [00:23:49]:
Yeah, well, and I'd be curious to get your thoughts on this because I feel like this is an element that's missing a little bit in the native plant or adaptive plant or water wise planting narrative is that I feel Like, a lot is focused on how you can save water, like use less. And I think that's vitally important and true. And also I do think that there's a missing element of we can help to essentially to create more water in San Antonio as a result of how these types of plants interact with the landscape in the instance of rain. So, for example, we just had a bunch of good rain perhaps last week, took us from stage five drought restrictions in San Antonio down to stage four, certainly still in drought. But a conventional lawn doesn't absorb that rainfall like something with a mixture of native and adaptive grasses and shrubs and trees and things like that. And so they ultimately become something of a more of a savings account, helping us to affect what is this smaller water cycle here in San Antonio for the future, keeping more water in our landscape than otherwise would be. And so I'm curious if you feel like there's an element of that that I think, you know, can help sell it even further, to say that it's not just about using less, but it's also, you know, the more that we kind of strategically and wisely plant in landscape, the more we can in fact kind of create more water and rain here in San Antonio.

Monika Maeckle [00:25:22]:
Well, what comes to mind for me is there's a. There's three plants that, that we have at our ranch because we're on a floodplain. And so the plants that thrive in that situation are plants that have really good root systems and like grab, you know, grab down and dig in or have rhizomes. And so, for example, there's an incredible plant called frost weed. I don't know if you know this plant, but this plant is a late season bloomer. It blooms in, you know, late summer, early fall, right when the monarchs and birds and everybody are, you know, migrating south. And so it's, it's a great resource for insects and wildlife. But what's really cool about this plant, it has a beautiful white blossom.

Monika Maeckle [00:26:03]:
And at the first freeze, this plant, it breaks open, it falls over, and the phloem from the plant oozes out of the plant and creates these frost crystals. And the word for that is crystalfolia. And it's been documented and written about. But I mean, it's just this incredible phenomenon. Like if you have children and you have a bunch of frostweed in your yard and that first freeze of the year, you go, hey guys, let's go check out the frostweed icicles. And you've been like, I mean, I put them in drinks. Like, I'm assuming They're safety. I mean, the plant's not toxic or anything.

Monika Maeckle [00:26:36]:
But I was like, man, somebody ought to, you know, make cocktails and sell them for double the price with the. With the frostweed crystals on it. But it makes these beautiful little ice sculptures. But my point on, you know, when you're talking about water conservation, that plant, I brought a couple from the ranch, it likes to be sort of under a tree where it gets a little. It gets sun, but then, you know, shade in the afternoon. But it has super deep roots. And this plant has rhizomes and tuberous roots that just like reach out and crawl and like, they hold soil in place and they help conserve water. Same with goldenrod.

Monika Maeckle [00:27:06]:
I mean, a lot of people don't like goldenrod. I mean, I call goldenrod my living mulch because I brought some from the ranch. It's taken over a big patch of my yard, and some people would find that annoying. Then it just sort of like creeps up and I'm like, yeah, so just pull it out. I mean, if you want to plant something there, pull it out. You know, dig a hole and it'll be surrounded by goldenrod. You know, it's better than, you know, buying mulch at the nursery or somewhere and putting it on there. And it's holding the soil in place.

Monika Maeckle [00:27:34]:
It's conserving water, it's feeling the soil, it's feeding insects, it's feeding birds. Like, so many aspects to this plant that are positive. How can you not want it? And then, you know, wild onions, too. Like, you could plant wild onions. I know in some places wild onions are considered an invasive plant. And, man, I think it's. I love that plant. I mean, you know, you've got fresh chives, you can take the bulbous and saute them and make little crunchy onion pops out of it.

Monika Maeckle [00:28:02]:
It's green, it's evergreen, it dies back when it gets super hot. It comes back when it's wet. I mean, this plant is resilient. I mean, there's just so many great plants to choose from, and you just have to do a little research and poke around and figure out what's your soil like. And I actually have a section of the book called from the Ground up. And it's in a, you know, it's not a hundred percent tutorial, but it's a very basic primer on, okay, what, you know, what do you need to be successful when you plant a plant? You know, what kind of soil do you have? How much water do you have? You know, how much sun exposure. And so that's very helpful as well. And got to know those things to be successful.

Monika Maeckle [00:28:38]:
And I always tell people that, you know, gardening is a process, not a project, because I've done many, many pollinator gardens in my lifetime. Everybody wants to do the pollinator garden. You know, everyone must take a patch of land and turn it into pollinator ground. But then it's not over. You know, you got to maintain it, you got to check on it, you got to water it, you got to prune it, you got to pull weeds. And so there's things to do, but it's totally worth it.

Cory Ames [00:29:00]:
Well, I mean, we do a lot of work on our landscapes anyhow.

Monika Maeckle [00:29:05]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:29:05]:
You know, I mean, I think it's difference in the behavioral change for someone who's not doing anything at all. I get that. And perhaps maybe that's better, you know, and so.

Monika Maeckle [00:29:15]:
Well, I mean, when you compare that to a lawn, you're mowing, you're, you're edging, you're fertilizing, you're watering, you know, it's like I go, you know, twice a year and do a super deep dive into my yard, like clean up, you know, prune, harvest, compost, basically. You know, if you're planting the right plants in the right place, it's not that much work.

Cory Ames [00:29:37]:
Yeah.

Monika Maeckle [00:29:38]:
But, you know, things can get out of control and take over. And if you want a certain look, you know, if you don't care, then, you know, that's fine too. It'll just be a complete wildscape. But I know hoas don't always agree with that and they want it to be intentional. And so, you know, the other thing that you can do when you're doing that is to put a sign of some sort in your front yard saying, you know, no mozone or pollinator garden. You know, I actually have signs for sale on my website for pollinator habitat. But if you have a sign up, it does make a big difference. And we've learned that many times over from both, you know, hoas.

Monika Maeckle [00:30:09]:
And Saws totally recommends that too, of having some sort of sign showing. Look, I meant to do it this way because a lot of times people go, hey, manage your, like Monblo guy get sick or something because, you know, you need to kind of tie in. Actually, I'm waiting for it to go to seed so it comes back next year. So. Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:30:26]:
Well, and that's, I think that's a good lesson there too, is the, the intentionality of it too, and starting small, like Even replacing it. And Saws has specific coupons for this. I think they just raised the rate from $100 to 120.

Monika Maeckle [00:30:40]:
Need to change your lawn into a neighborhood.

Cory Ames [00:30:42]:
That's right. And I think it's for 100 square feet or something to replace that lawn.

Monika Maeckle [00:30:46]:
And if you go to the major nurseries, they typically have the water saver plant coupon plants, like, you know, somehow called out, or they have a special row or they, you know, show on. On the tag. Oh, yeah, this is a water saver plan, and you can redeem your coupon. But I did want to mention, you know, that I had a lawn. I lived in Illinois Heights for many years, and I had a lawn for decades. And then when I started learning about it, when I started doing monarch stuff, and I was like, you know, I want to have a pollinator garden. I started very small, and I did, like, cardboard. Like, it's not technically solarization, but basically lay down cardboard.

Monika Maeckle [00:31:26]:
You water it, you cover it with mulch, and you let it, you know, decompose. And it basically chokes the sun away from anything growing there. And then you can put your hole in the cardboard and plant something that you want, like goldenrod or frost weed or whatever. And I started very small. And it was interesting because half my neighbors loved this. I had this sort of wilder landscape in the front yard. I just took a little bit of the front yard, and there was still some grass there, but it was full sun, perfect for pollinator garden. And half the neighbors hated it, and half the neighbors loved it.

Monika Maeckle [00:31:59]:
And it just seems like that's always the case that, you know, it's either gonna. You're not gonna please everybody, but for me, that was the first step. And it wasn't, like, a major, you know, landscaping operation, but it was, like, step by step. And, like, slowly but surely, it got bigger and bigger and bigger. And then when we sold our house in Alamo Heights, we moved downtown, and we built a house from scratch. It was the first time in my life I had a clean palette where it's like, hey, I can do what I want from the ground up. And I did the entire yarn as a pollinator garden. We don't have any lawn.

Monika Maeckle [00:32:30]:
I've actually had a certain spot that's been problematic that I've been trying to figure out what to do with over the years. And I tried planting a zoysia grass lawn. Cause my dogs really like to roll on the grass. And only half of it took. And now it's been taken over by pollinator Plants, which is fine, too. But like I said, you know, gardening is a process, not a project. But it was really fun to do the pollinator garden from the very beginning versus having to convert something like I've always done in the past.

Cory Ames [00:33:00]:
Yeah. I'm on that conversion path, and I've had some notices attached to my door to mow my lawn. You know, I know what my neighbors make them call. But then right next door, after enough time, they're like, whatever you want to. I'm like, you start to get these little baby plants sprouting up, depending on what you plant. And they insisted, whatever you want to put into our yard, please do. Just go ahead. You have a green line.

Cory Ames [00:33:23]:
All right. You know, with this abundance of flame acanthus that we have, or Greg's missed flower or whatever it might be, let's transplant it over there and start, you know, kind of making this a whole pollinator neighborhood. So some people really buy in.

Monika Maeckle [00:33:36]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:33:37]:
And you never know who. And so it's good to kind of lead by example and see what happens.

Monika Maeckle [00:33:40]:
It was interesting when I lived in Austin for a year back when I was working for Business Wire, my corporate job. I had Austin for a while because we opened an Austin office. So I got an apartment there, and I moved in in November. And I told Mary, I said, can I please garden? Can I please have part of the yard to garden? Because I have to do it. She don't have to. So she had grass. So I did the same thing. I did the cardboard, you know, mulch thing, and I put a pollinator garden in, and it was doing great.

Monika Maeckle [00:34:10]:
I had gymsuina and lantana, you know, all my favorite plants, sunflowers. But the guy next door had a yard, and he was. He was former military, and he was incredibly anal retentive about hr. He would mow, like, three times a week. He literally came out with scissors and, like, clipped along the sidewalk to make sure the grass was not, you know, and. And he hated my pollinator garden. And he was like, man, what are you doing over here? I was like, oh, it's a pollinator garden. Look, check out all the piece.

Monika Maeckle [00:34:39]:
Look, monarchs are coming. And he just thought it was ridiculous. And I was only there a year. When I moved out, he came with his mower and mowed over my pollinator garden. And I drove by there, like, six months later, and there was one cowpen daisy, you know, which is one of my favorite sunflower plants, just peeking up like, I'm still here. You know, it was, like, sad. But you know, it was a weight yard, so I couldn't do anything about it. But people have very strong feelings about it, you know, and if they're wedded to that, sometimes it's just not possible to, you know, change their minds.

Monika Maeckle [00:35:08]:
But I do see a general trend of change. And that's a good thing.

Cory Ames [00:35:12]:
Well, I think there's so many benefits to it, and, you know, there's a lot of people, I think, waiting to adopt the trend who may not otherwise be aware of it. And so, you know, people especially who just don't have the time to delve into the information, like folks who are writing a whole book about it. They're looking for, you know, tips and strategies because it's so frustrating to put something in the ground, not have it survive, because you didn't really know what you were trying to select and for what reason, or likewise taking the time to model on that, maybe you don't use like you otherwise would, and you wonder why you're doing it. It's this, you know, sisyphusian activity of every single week out there mowing it. But I also think that it's a simple but powerful observation to pay attention to. You are putting things in the ground using many of the books or many of the plants outlined in this book, plants with purpose that thrive. And at a time when it can seem, you know, as as a result of maybe a lot of development or just more challenging climactic conditions with heat and drought, we're having a lot of things die. And I was just speaking with Scott Anderson, the arborist on the the arboretum project.

Cory Ames [00:36:21]:
His company, Urban Tree company. You mentioned to me that I think it's maybe about 25, 30% of San Antonio's tree canopy were projected to lose, I think, over the next year or a few years. And that's a devastating statistic. And it. It certainly takes a long time to get fully matured trees with the impact that they can have on shade and cooling. The environment around us serve and heat island challenges that we can face in San Antonio. And so I think that to focus on the fact that there's so much abundance in life being created, if you're selecting the right plants, the right place, and also the right time, given that our conditions are kind of changing to be a little bit more harsh and severe, you can be rewarded with, you know, what seems like kind of a compounding, accelerating curve towards, you know, what vibrancy is happy. And so it seems like a critically important thing for us to focus on here when other trends are not so promising.

Monika Maeckle [00:37:16]:
Yeah, I mean, I would like to mention too, you're talking about, you know, sister bore to plant plants and then they die. But, you know, I did the master gardener training. In it, there was always the joke that, you know, a master gardener is basically someone who's killed 10,000 plants because, I mean, we all kill plants. Like I brought all these plants from the ranch, some Mexican hat plants, which is the seed packet seed that I handed at my book events. And I thought, you know, they're just going crazy at the ranch. I'm like, cool, I'm going to, you know, bring sun, like transplant. Then we had, you know, like 100 degree temperatures. It's like, these plants are not going to make it.

Monika Maeckle [00:37:50]:
I mean, you're. They've just been uprooted. We took them, you know, put them in the ground of water. Never did everything, but it's like, sorry, you know, just not going to happen. But that's not failure. I mean, you're just. It's like I said, it's a process. So you got to, you know, don't, don't beat yourself up because you're killing some plants.

Monika Maeckle [00:38:04]:
I mean, it's just a great excuse to go out and buy some more plants. And I don't know about you, but I got a really bad plant habit. Even though I have no room in my garden for any more plants, I can't resist it. Well, I need to have that. I'll find a place for it. Yeah. Another thing I wanted to mention is that you have to be able to tolerate a little bit messy because even, you know, late in the summer in particular, you have a lot of things that are dying or like, look scraggly or whatever. But a lot of times those plants are shielding other plants from heat and abuse from the, you know, from the sun.

Monika Maeckle [00:38:37]:
And like, once you cut them out, then the plant underneath is exposed completely 100% to harsh conditions. And you know, so I mean, this plant communities, it's not just about what that plant looks like. It's like, what is that plant doing for the other plants around it. And I think that's another thing to consider. And a lot of people get really frustrated or impatient with like leaving the plants when they're brown. And that's some of the most important time because you've got shelter for butterflies and birds and rodents and other creatures that fuel the ecosystem. And they need a place to hide. They need a place to protect themselves from either heat or cold.

Monika Maeckle [00:39:13]:
And you can't just clean it up all the time. So you gotta go through the cycle and get the vibe and kind of go through the routine of the timing of the seasons.

Cory Ames [00:39:22]:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think that the dinner party metaphor continues to hold very true for that type of experience. A dinner party is never perfect, but it's usually always worth it, you know?

Monika Maeckle [00:39:33]:
Absolutely.

Cory Ames [00:39:34]:
I think of it like somebody, especially.

Monika Maeckle [00:39:36]:
If somebody else helps with addition.

Cory Ames [00:39:38]:
Oh, yeah, well, for sure, things get messy sometimes. You know, some guests are not as proper and appropriate as you'd need or whatever. But I likewise think about it, you know, similar to parenting, is that it kind of. It takes your landscape or if it's a lawn, it takes it from being some sort of object to really being some sort of really living, breathing, you know, being. And not just one. Like, it is in fact a community. And out there every single day you're like, what's happening now?

Monika Maeckle [00:40:04]:
Exactly.

Cory Ames [00:40:05]:
No critters or caterpillars around. And. And that's my routine with my 1 year old and 3 year old every single morning, where.

Monika Maeckle [00:40:12]:
Let's go see what's happening.

Cory Ames [00:40:13]:
Yeah, let's check some new things out. What's bloating, what's changed? What's maybe not doing so well and could perhaps use some water or a winter transplant.

Monika Maeckle [00:40:21]:
Yeah. I mean, it's almost like thinking about it, almost like a member of the family. Like, let's go check on. You know, that's what I do. Like in my yard. I have like these little trails and I like walk around. Okay, how's everybody? Okay. Everybody's good over here.

Monika Maeckle [00:40:31]:
I was going there. Now, my friend Ann, who did the transformation of her legacy lawn to the Wildscape, just telling me how, you know, she never really used to go out in the yard and look around, but like now every single day she's out in the yard looking like, okay, are there any bees on? I was like, oh, did the butterflies come and lay some eggs over here? And it's like this whole engaging experience versus just. Yeah, it's pretty great. Let's go. You know, it's like, wow, there's things to learn, there's things to see, there's things to engage me and my family and my children here. And so it's just a whole different approach. That's so worth it. It's just so worth it.

Monika Maeckle [00:41:06]:
It's so much more interesting.

Cory Ames [00:41:08]:
Absolutely. It really, it changes it totally into something of a work of art that you're, you know, shaping and molding and you have some certain failures over time, but the successes are very Sweet. And really, the more, you know, the more successful it becomes. Not even necessarily because you're putting new things in the ground, but you realize how interesting and compelling the plants that you do have in the ground are. You know, whether it's American beauty berry.

Monika Maeckle [00:41:38]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:41:38]:
I think is a really great example, one that I put in the ground a long time ago. But then come to find these new things about it, you know, from whether it's the berries itself to the. The leaves being, you know, a stronger mosquito repellent if crushed and rubbed upon your skin than deet in recent research studies, you're like, wow, in San Antonio, a place where I gotta get rid of the mosquitoes.

Monika Maeckle [00:41:58]:
I thought that was a cool factoid about the American Beauty berry leaves. They put them on horses to keep the fleas off. And the mockingbirds totally love that plant.

Cory Ames [00:42:09]:
Well, that's. I think a nice thing for us to start to wrap up on is that there are so many ways to solve some problems more mundane from a privacy screen or whatever to maybe more complex and complicated as, you know, repellents for livestock or whatever it might be. All things that we do encounter here in San Antonio in the greater area that we can think through our natural kind of native foliage that exists here. Like, oh, what does that do? The experimentation process, as I'm thinking about that is insane. How did people come to understand that these things did X, Y and Z? A lot of trial and tribulation. Wouldn't want to be the taste tester. But anyhow, Monica, thank you so much for taking the time or running up here. Last thing, let us know specifically where we can get plants with purpose, any local bookstores or anything you might recommend.

Cory Ames [00:42:59]:
Where's the best place to check it out?

Monika Maeckle [00:43:01]:
Well, nowhere bookstore has it and the Twig has it. It's basically available anywhere books are sold. There will be a book event on June 24th at the Twig. If anybody would like to join us, it'll be me, you, Corey, and the illustrator for the book, Hilary Rocha, who did incredible, very beautiful, botanically correct illustrations of the book. And so there's 25 illustrations and about, I think, 150 or so photos. So there's a lot packed in there.

Cory Ames [00:43:31]:
All right, well, we'll recommend folks, meet us at twig Bookshop on the 24th of June.

Monika Maeckle [00:43:38]:
Yeah.

Cory Ames [00:43:38]:
Monica Mackley, thanks so much for being here on Big City, Small Town.

Monika Maeckle [00:43:41]:
Well, thank you so much for having me.

Cory Ames [00:43:46]:
Please share this episode with friends and colleagues and do sign up for our new newsletter, Monday Musings. Big City, Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban Building, the city our children want to call home and Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Our producer is Corey Ames. Video by Erica Rempel. Sound engineering by Alfie de la Garza of Sound Crane Audio. We will see you next week.