November 3, 2023 • 30 mins
Erin Mills is the Education Manager for Houston Botanic Garden and Justin Lacey is their director of communications. Houston Botanic Garden is a beautiful and diverse series of biomes created to take visitors on a journey through our local flora but also take a look at plants from around the world. We discuss the right way of planting and caring for non-native species but we emphasis that for most backyards, going with native plants is the way to go. Especially if one wants to help Monarch Butterflies migrate from Canada to Mexico and attract all the millions of migrating bids and pollinators that make nature so awesome to watch.
Another exhibit is “Glass in Flight” by Tucson-based artist Alex Heveri. There is a lot more going on. so check out their website to see the ever-transforming Houston Botanical Garden: www.hbg.org.
Another exhibit is “Glass in Flight” by Tucson-based artist Alex Heveri. There is a lot more going on. so check out their website to see the ever-transforming Houston Botanical Garden: www.hbg.org.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome to Houston, PA. Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect those
hell by this radio station it's managementstaff for any of its advertisers. My
name is Laurent I am the Texanfrom France, and I'm a fan of
(00:27):
the flora and the fauna in thiscountry. I absolutely love the plants and
the beautiful creatures that live in theseplants and pollinate these plants in the Houston
area. And we're one of thecities that has started to talk about being
a little bit better stewards of oursurroundings and of our nature by talking about
(00:47):
topics such as planting native species ofplants and grasses on our property. If
you buy a piece of property andit's barren and you want to build a
house on it, try not todestroy all the trees. Only take down
the trees that would be where yourhouse is going to sit in the future.
All those little things that go rightdown to not throwing your cigarette out
(01:11):
the window when you're driving. Don'tdo anything bad or violent to those people.
I know that That's how I feel. I feel like I wish I
was an eighteen wheeler here and Iwouldn't stop. I would just kind of
go over them for throwing their cigarettebutt out the window. But I don't
drive an eighteen wheeler, so thankgoodness. My guests today are here from
the Houston Botanic Gardens. They areonline at HBG dot org HBG dot org.
(01:38):
This is a fantastic little paradise southof downtown. It is a place
where you can go from one biometo another just by taking a short walk.
It's mostly native species, but alsoa bunch of demonstrations, so to
speak. It's almost like museum piecesof little biospheres to demonstrate to the beauty
(02:00):
and variety of our world and alsojust to inspire people to take care of
it and take a look at it. My guests are Aaron Mills. She
is the education manager for Houston BotanicGardens, and Justin Lacy is their director
of Communications for Houston Botanic Gardens.They're going to have an interesting symposium coming
up on November eleventh with a fellownamed doctor Doug Telemy. He is a
(02:24):
conservationist and he is going to talkabout making homegrown national parks you can turn
your backyard into a little national parkby following some simple, commonly reasonable methods
of planting native species. For instance, we'll talk about that. They have
a beautiful new exhibit that has justopened. It's called Glass and Flight.
(02:45):
These are glass butterflies that was sculptedby an artist from Tucson. Her name
is Alex Herveri. And well,let me ask you justin this is one
of those collections of sculptures that aremade with stained glass and steel, and
so basically it's a game of lighton top of a game of culture,
of sculpture and culture it is,and it's one of those things that you
(03:07):
really have to come back and seemore than once, because as the weather
changes, as the position of thesun changes, each of those sculptures is
going to look a little bit different. And the artist actually has designed them,
and she came and placed them herselfon the site so that they would
be responsive to the sun in uniqueways. Yeah, and as they do
that, you know, so manyand Aaron will talk about this later,
but so many insects have those kindof iridescent or transparent portions of their wings,
(03:30):
and so these sculptures, you know, mimic that and really are quite
beautiful at any time of day,but we encourage people to come and check
them out multiple times. We havethe way we represent nature can be very
beautiful, but it turns into somethingcompletely different. You take a glass butterfly
and you look at the actual butterfly, and it seems like the work of
(03:52):
Mother Nature is so much more intricateand beautiful. Butterflies are pretty amazing.
I think we completely ignore the factthat they're among the most important pollinators in
our area and we literally have millions, billions over our lifetimes, billions of
these butterflies that travel over five thousandmiles to South America. It's insane.
They fly over the Gulf of Mexico. It's practically unimaginable. And we'll get
(04:15):
into that a little bit more.You had this this exhibit about the monarch
butterfly, which is the migrating butterfly, and you had a dance performance commissioned.
Did you commission or they just theyjust brought it to the place.
Well, so Open Dance Project isbased here locally, and we have partnered
with them in the past, andso we were just kind of talking about
trying to partner again and this isactually a piece that they originally put together
(04:40):
to do in San Antonio at ConfluencePark, and so they basically added us
to the schedule and it just sohappened it worked out where we got to
go before San Antonio, so wewound up we wound up premiering a piece
that was actually done for someone else, and we did it for two evenings
in the Garden and it was justincredible. We stayed open a little bit
later than normal, we had familiesout and open dance. If you've never
(05:00):
seen them before, very contemporary andvery immersive, so you know, the
garden basically serves as one a memberof the troop in some ways, and
so they literally people follow them aroundlike they it's not a seated performance that
you're following them around. They're dancinglike right, you know, right in
front of you. And it wasjust super meaningful. They literally kind of
(05:21):
as a troop, you know,did things individually. They did things where
they you know, kind of flutteredtogether for lack of a better word,
but it really was it was designedto and their costumes, the colors and
everything so indicative of you know,especially monarchs and what we think of them.
It was just an incredible time.I mean, I was out there
and I'm out there every day,and it just felt different. It felt
(05:44):
better the way that people were enjoyingthe space and seeing the performance like that.
That brought to life something that isin some ways so unfathomable for us.
And it's and it's kind of scopeand scale. It's kind of unusual
to do something like that, andit is a very cool way to experience
performing arts like that too, also, especially since you know, if it
turns out it's not something that you'reinto all that much, you can look
(06:05):
around and admire the plants. Therewere definitely some folks doing that, and
that's perfectly that's fine. That's perfectlyfine. And of course, if you're
in a theater and you're watching dance, you don't like you're not allowed to
use your phone anyway. Justin letme ask you. I mentioned that the
space the Houston Botanic Garden is arrangedin basically sections of they're like different biomes.
(06:30):
Go ahead and do that for us, Explain it to us in a
way that actually makes sense. Andsince you know what you're talking about,
but you're basically recreating the Houston biomeas best as possible, but you have
areas that are from on the otherside of the planet. Yeah, and
so what we're really trying to dois celebrate the diversity of our city in
the plant palette of the garden.So we have a space that's called the
(06:50):
Global Collection Garden. I like tosay, it's your opportunity to go around
the world in three acres and muchless than eighty days, although again we
encourage people to come back often,so they could certainly spend eighty days in
the garden enjoying it. But wehave tropical, subtropical, and arid plants
literally from around the world. Myother kind of joke is that we have
plants from every continent except Antarctica,although given the time we've had since we
(07:14):
opened in twenty twenty, we mighthave done well to bring in a couple
of Antarctic plants as well with thosefreezes. But yes, and a lot
of it is regionally themed. Sowe have a tropical area in the center,
and you can get down into that. It's the lowest point in the
garden and you are in this tropicalenvironment. You can't see anything else,
you know, you hear the bananaleaves blowing around you. I mean it's
very immersive, and then just stepsaway you can be out in Arizona surrounded
(07:41):
by boulders that look like the GrandCanyon, a variety of agaves and cacti
and things like that. And soyou know, we're finding a lot of
people. I think when we openduring the pandemic especially, and people weren't
traveling as much, they were reallyappreciative of that sense of traveling within this
space and being able to see theseplants. We have an area with bamboo
where again, I mean you canget into that bamboo, you can't see
(08:03):
beyond it. It has a uniquesound. But you're also growing plants from
other parts of the planet, forinstance bamboo, and bamboo is scary because
certain kinds of bamboo spread like wildfireand it's almost actually it's worse than wildfire
because wildfire has a cleansing and fertilizingeffect, whereas the bamboo just takes it
takes a lot of water. Soyou must be very careful about what kind
(08:26):
of bamboo you've planted. Some ofthem don't spread very easily at all,
and they're fantastic, especially if youwant to hide from the neighbors and those
would be the varieties that we have, okay, and yes we worked.
So the garden was designed by alandscape design firm called West eight actually out
of the Netherlands, but they partneredwith local landscapers who are able to make
(08:48):
really informed plant decisions and plants.So the you know, the garden the
West State has this really big visionand then the locals come in and say,
okay, within that vision, theseare plants that you want. And
now we did do some experiment aswell. Not with the bamboo. We
went with the non clumping or wewent with the clumping varieties. Sorry,
but but in some other areas andwith the freezes, we've some of that
experimenting, you know, has hasproven not to work out, but there
(09:11):
were things that they at least wantedto try again. That's part of our
mission. You know, we're doingeducation, we're doing discovery, and so
we want to have the natives toshow that side, but we also want
to have things to kind of eitherinspire or just help people see, you
know, even for a short time. You know, we did an experiment
with lavender that hasn't really been workingout, and so I think we'll be
replacing that with something else. Butyou know, the garden is always growing
(09:33):
and it's always changing its nature.You know, on display, lavender is
not only beautiful, but the smellthat permiahd air is absolutely wonderful from the
south of France, and obviously wehad lavender in the garden and you can
it's kind of like mint. Ifyou run your fingers over it, you
get the smell of it in yourhands, and it lasts for hours,
and it's just it's it's an amazingplant, absolutely amazing plant. After you
(09:58):
mentioned the freeze, you obviously losta ton of plants. Inevitably. Did
the native species come back faster thanthe non native species? Many of them
did. Yes, that's the pointwe're making here. It is the point.
And like I said, you know, our horticulture staff, who are
really talented and have diverse backgrounds themselves, are looking at that, and I
(10:18):
think there will be some things wherewe will bring in more natives, perhaps
even than we had before. Becauseof that. The things that I saw,
you know, there was just completedevastation, Like personally, yeah,
but then just I appreciate nature somuch more now, just even because of
what I've seen since February twenty one. That's greable. We have banana plants
that died to the ground. Wedidn't replant them. They're back to I
(10:39):
mean, they're way over your headand they're fruiting and doing all these things.
And so you know that is something. For as devastating as it seemed
in the moment, I think it'sbeen just a great story in the world.
Well, the point being that itwasn't all that devastating. It's just
that we're just obsessing over it everyhour of the day. It's extremely unhealthy.
(11:00):
It causes us to overreact in thedumbest ways. And once you've overreacted
and you've launched yourself in the wrongdirection, think of a rocket. It's
like momentum. You got to slowdown before you can turn around, and
psychologically, educationally, slowing down misinformationtakes twice as long. It's just an
incredible mistake that you end up payingfor in the long run and for a
(11:24):
long time. But I'm just I'mvery fond of reminding ourselves that a lot
of these things are completely beyond ourcontrol and what we can control, or
often subjects that we don't talk aboutenough, like, for instance, making
sure that maybe if you have abackyard, you have some plants that the
butterflies will want to land in becausethat's gonna embellish the area. But embellishing
(11:48):
the area, of course, meansthat it also becomes more fruitful and safer
and saner for all of us.You are listening to Houston PA, Houston's
Public Affairs Show. My name isLaurent and my guests are here from Houston
Botanic Garden. They're online at HBGdot org. HBG dot org. You
(12:09):
can also become a member. That'sa great way to support this organization,
and especially if you think you livein the neighborhood or you like driving in
that area and you'd like to justdrop in on a regular basis wait out
the traffic. My guest are AaronMills. She is the education manager for
the Houston Botanic Garden, and JustinLacy is their director of communications. Aaron,
(12:33):
let's talk about these butterflies, becauseI know you're an entomologist, and
that is someone who studies bugs exactlyso you're not grossed out by bugs.
We've already mentioned that we like cockroaches. We recognize their use. They're actually
magnificent. I feel like cockroaches area little bit like alligators. They're so
ugly. They're magnificent. It isa beautiful it's just it's ugly to us.
(12:56):
They're ecologically yeah, very important,they're insanely they're just very very interesting.
And of course we associate them withdirt and dirty and slime, and
they're not dirty at all, actually, unless learn to take advantage of our
environments and our free food and afree harbridge that we offer them when they're
like at cald outside. But it'snice in here and look there there's crumbs
(13:18):
and you know, who needs needsto be outside. So they're just smart,
that's all. They're about as dirtyas your house too, that's one
of the things. And they're edible, although that's not something that I'm interested
in. Yeah, but we let'stalk about the butterflies though, because they're
actually beautiful, well at least pasttheir lava stage. They're kind of they're
achy to Yeah, but you understandthat people think the stuff is ichy,
(13:39):
right, I'm with you. Ithink it's fascinating, but you've learned.
These little creatures start like a littlethey look like little worms with feet,
a bunch of little palls. Thecaterpillars are just so variable and really fascinating.
I mean, they can run fromanything from looking like bird poop to
(14:00):
looking like little snakes with you know, big ice spots on their head or
being camouflaged. Some of them lookright, but that pokemon hats on.
Yeah, there's so many, andso some might look kind of icky,
but some look absolutely beautiful, andyou know, some look like a twig.
So they're just they're extremely variable,just like their adult forms are,
so they're just as fascinating. Infact, there's there's something called the caterpillar
(14:24):
Lab and it's out of a university. Of course I can't think of it
right now, but they feature differentpictures of you know, caterpillars all the
time, so if you follow themon social media, you'll get to see
all sorts of really cool caterpillars.So they really focus on that life stage.
It's pretty fun. Now, wethink this is pretty basic, but
the truth is that I'm constantly remindedthat when it comes to the natural order
(14:45):
of things, we're all ignorant onsome subjects. And I don't think people
understand that butterflies aren't born as butterflies. You have to explain this process because
I know, but if you havea kid in the car, listen to
this. It's amazing. They literallyapp themselves in a cocoon and it's it's
just it's unbelievable and it's beautiful towatch. A butterfly does not a moth
(15:07):
can help. The very hungry caterpillaris mislet us all. So, like
the silk words sand from leon,I think makers. Yeah, right,
A butterfly is a like a nakedpupa basically is nothing surrounding it. It's
called a chrysalis. So if youever heard the term chrysalis, yes,
that's the word for chrysalis comes fromthe Greek word chrysos, meaning gold,
(15:30):
And so a lot of butterfly chrysaliswill have actually little flecks of gold in
there, you know, kind ofbuilt into their skin. So we're not
exactly sure why, but you knowa lot of it probably has to do
with like optical illusion and camouflage andyou know, kind of throwing off predators.
But butterflies a chrysalis. So somy whole career I've been correcting it.
So what's the difference. So acocoon is actually it's like a it's
(15:54):
like a protective thing around the pupilstage. So mostly it's usually made out
of silk, so a moth,you know, and some moths, not
all, but like moths in thegiant silk moth family, the saturn neids,
they will be up in their hostplant and they'll kind of crawl and
they'll pull in a couple of theleaves and they'll weave the silk all the
way around and make like a littlecapsule, and then inside they'll form their
(16:17):
pupa. And flies do it,so you know, different insects make cocoons.
It's just basically a protect protective pacingaround their pupa. The silk of
the moth is incredibly strong. It'sone of those things we know that spiders
we have very strong filament, butit is easy for human to break if
(16:38):
you've ever walked through some, butsilk won't act that way. You could
actually cut your finger on it.It's it's extremely strong and it's an extraordinary
little creature, absolutely amazing domesticated insectthe silk. So there's a cruel aspect
(16:59):
to this. In order to harvestthe silk, we have to kill the
bug and it's pupa because of coursewhen it comes out, it cuts the
strings, it destroys, so wehave to boil them up and then they
I guess they unravel it. It'sjust it's just absolutely insane. But so
the butterflies become a pupa crystalis crystalisAnd how long do they stay in that
(17:23):
stage? Roughly two weeks It dependson the species, but it's you know,
ten to fourteen days. Also dependson temperature, and if they're not
well hidden, a bird is justgoing to swoop down and eat it.
No, not necessarily, birds don'ttypically go for the crysalis, but I
mean most of them are very wellcamouflaged or otherwise you know, have have
(17:45):
some markings or things on them thatmake them look, yeah, very distasteful.
But a lot of butterflies, alot of them are distasteful in the
first place because most of I meana lot of them feed on toxic plants.
And if they don't feed in toxicplants, they mimic one feeds on
toxic plants, So they can bevery tricky. Is the monarch butterfly one
of those? Yes, they eattoxic plants. Now, what's the name
(18:07):
of that plant? The one that'sparticularly weed, milk weed. So if
you plant milkweed in your garden,you will get monarchs. Yeah. Absolutely,
it's probably one of the very easiestand you know, most quick you
know, as soon as you plantthe plant, you're probably gonna start seeing
monarch. Some butterflies will take awhile to find your your little patch of
host plants. But monarchs are,they're on it, and they're on their
(18:30):
way somewhere else. They are they'vearrived. They should they should be arriving
now in Mexico where from from allover the United States all the way up
to Canada. So a lot ofthe ones from here though they stay,
they don't have to go anywhere.Uh, they all pass through here.
But we do have in Texas,especially where we live in along the Gulf
(18:52):
coast, sort of like a stationarypopulation north of US. And like I
said, extending all the way upinto canadu is where the monarchs come from.
And so during up in Canada,as early as August they begin to
so let's say, you know,in late August, those butterflies will emerge
and they'll go into a reproductive diapause. So that means they're not interested in
(19:15):
the opposite sex at all. Theyare just gonna fly and they're a little
bit larger, their wings are sturdier, a little bit morphologically different from their
parents, and they are they justthey drink water and they feed on nectar.
But they just have one thing inmind, and that's reaching Mexico and
that from Canada. It just itblows my mind. It's just crazy the
(19:38):
ocean. They fly through weather andyou know, weather events and all sorts
of things. And if you're luckyyou live, you know, in Central
Texas is kind of they like,you know, from everywhere east of the
Rockies. They all they all kindof you know, are coming from all
these different places, but they sortof funnel together through kind of Central Texas.
(19:59):
Some along the Golf Coast, Soa lot of places along the Gulf
coast we'll see these big swarms ofmonarchs. We'll see, you know,
a slight increase in monarch activity.So like I was in the garden and
I saw like eight monarchs on youknow, one little patch of flowers,
and I was like, oh,they're you know, they're kind of coming
through right now. Other parts ofTexas still see the big clouds of monarchs.
So around the beginning of November,they'll arrive and that kind of syncs
(20:23):
up with Dia delo Smertos, whichis today and you know, tonight and
tomorrow being celebrated. The arrival ofthe monarchs is a big part of that,
so it's kind of very symbolic ofthose souls returning. So it's pretty
cool. Do we know how theyknow where to go? There's theories,
Yeah, we don't basically get atthem. Magnetic fields, pheromone trails,
(20:49):
all of those types of things thatwe we can't hardly comprehend. HBG dot
org. HBG dot org, especiallyin this fall weather, which is going
to last through May, I think, because it's November now and basically depending
on your perspective, from November toMay, it's either a fall or spring
in Texas, but it's not winterall right. You are listening to Houston
(21:15):
PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.My name is Laurent. My guest are
here from Houston Botanic Garden. AaronMills is the education manager and Justin Lacy
is their director of communication. Justinyou mentioned that you're more of a literary
mind and you're not a green thumbby nature, apparently, which puts you
pretty much in the same category thatI sit in. But my mom is
(21:37):
a green thumb, and so theexperience that you're having in the botanic garden
is akin to the one I havewhen I just walk around the garn with
my mom. She has one ofthose signs in front of the property.
It's a natural preserve, like youcan apply and they have some rules.
You have to have x percentage ofnatural native plants, and that percentage in
my mother's garden is one hundred percentexcept for the darnwiz that she's killing one
(22:02):
by one, sometimes literally one byone. Well, you know, one
thing that I've learned in my timethere, and that we've talked a lot
about, is that everybody has aplant story, and we love for people
to share their plant stories. Andand I didn't even really think about it
that way myself until I started workingthere. But my maternal grandmother was lived
very near the Dallas Arbreedham and PotanicalGarden, which is you know, wondrous,
(22:26):
beautiful, Yeah, And she hada home garden and she would take
us there when we were kids tosee the botanical garden. And you know,
I didn't think about that of courseat that time, that that would
ever be something so relevant to me. Yeah, and then my paternal grandfather,
you know, grew fruit and vegetablesout in the backyard and you know
we never bought store strawberry jam becausewe had you know, for strawberry preserves
(22:49):
and all that. But again,you don't think about those things in the
moment. But like, everybody hasa plant story or plant stories, and
you know, that's something that welove too about being such a global garden
is knowing that our visitors are comingfrom all over for them to come and
see plants that meant something to them, maybe where they grew up and maybe
that they don't have as much accessto here, and just those memories that
(23:10):
come out well and the kind oftake a trip around the world. It's
interesting to see the plants that arefrom around here and recognize that we've seen
them around Aha, those people haveplanted those things in their backyard. What
kind of gets me going is thoselawns that are made the grasses that aren't
native and require literally tons, hundredsof thousands of tons of water. Leaders
(23:33):
after leaders, and you know,those sprinklers that are going off in the
middle of the afternoon in the middleof conservation times. These are the sort
of subjects that we should be ableto politely talk about. But if we
did so, then we wouldn't havethese problems anymore. Imagine that. But
you know another thing on that storytoo. So the garden site was a
(23:55):
golf course before municipal golf course,and so in the time since the gardens
has taken on the lease for theproperty and has started the transformation. I
know we've been talking about butterflies,but we have a great bird story to
tell too. Houston autubonn has theirRaptor and Education center just across the bio
from the site, so they comeonce a month and do a bird count,
and they were doing that back whenit was a golf course. In
(24:17):
the time since the golf course,you know, transitioned out and the garden
has come in, more than doublethe number of bird species that have been
seen. I mean, just incredible. You know, people think I would
be one that would say, well, a golf course, it's nature,
it's outdoors. It's not. Imean, it's a heavily chemically treated space.
Yep, it's very unnatural in somany ways. And that's one of
the other great stories about the gardenis we're taking this outdoor space and we're
(24:40):
letting it go back to nature orattack for so much biodiversity. I mean,
I see just so much all thetime, so many species of insects
that I'm like, wow, haveI even seen that? But yeah,
I don't think I've seen. It'sso encouraging that it's very encouraging to me
because we're constantly confronted with our predictionsof the end of the world coming in
(25:03):
twelve years and other really stupid thingslike that, Oh my goodness, and
then we're confronted with the daily obsessionsof droughts and ice storms and water,
and we seem to completely ignore thatno matter what calamity befalls nature, she
comes right back. It's just wehad a huge rout and it rained half
a day and it didn't even rainvery hard. In my neighborhood. The
(25:26):
next day the grass was half greenagain. It's kind of extraordinary. It's
almost like you could sit there andwatch the green spread through the leaf.
Anyway, go to the Houston BotanicGarden. We didn't talk about this very
much, but doctor Doug Telemy,who is a conservationist is going to do
a symposion on November eleventh. He'sgoing to talk about homegrown National Park.
(25:48):
Just real quick, Aaron, whatdoes that mean? A homegrown National Park?
So, according to doctor p Ttoleomy, but you know, it's kind
of common knowledge we've been talking about, is that the American lawn, you
know, is taking up you know, millions of acres of land that could
be native plants, that could bewildlife habitat. And so I don't know
(26:10):
the numbers off the top of myhead, but the acreage of lawn are
you know, far exceed the acreageof the national parks that we actually do
have. So by the simple stepsof planting a garden, choosing native plants,
choosing certain native plants, which hecalls keystone species, which are species
that support a lot of biodiversity.So, you know, pollinators and caterpillars,
(26:33):
caterpillars back to, caterpillars are foodare the biggest transfers of energy from
plants, you know, to youknow, up through the food chains.
So birds, I think, youknow, one little chickadee chick can take
you know, two thousand or socaterpillars. It can eat two thousand or
so caterpillars, you know, toget to adulthood. And that's just one
tiny bird. So caterpillars are soimportant. So a big part of what
(26:56):
he talks about is planting plants forcaterpillars, host plants, and then yeah,
plants for pollinators and things like that. So he's going to be there
talking about Homegrown National Park and whatyou can do. He's a wonderful speaker.
It's going to be really entertaining.The whole event. We're calling Celebrating
Conservation because we are having some localpeople come in and tell their stories.
(27:19):
So the Houston Zoo is going tobe there talking about some of their conservation
success, Galveston Bay Estuary Program,which is going to take care of our
watersheds our coastline, and also andI'm really excited about two local schools,
Our School and Katie and then anelementary school, garden Villa Elementary School.
(27:40):
They're going to be talking about theirconservation efforts and their just local their school
gardens. So they're working with theNational Wildlife Federation and some of their initiatives
to you know, to get theirschool gardens going. And they have some
great stories of how it's impacted thestudents, how it's you know, it's
helped them, how it's impacted thelocal wildlife. So they're to be that's
(28:00):
going to be really interesting to hearabout. So you'll get to hear all
of that little happy hour white bites, and then we'll listen to doctor Tellomy.
So it's gonna be a great event. You know, this kind of
stuff is not life changing in theway that it changes your whole life in
a dramatic way, but it's oneof those small building blocks that that helps
you look at the world in adifferent way. For example, dragonflies.
(28:21):
A bunch of people are afraid ofdragonflies. We were talking about the Glass
and Flight exhibit that is currently showingat Houston Botanic Garden. They've got glass
dragonflies. And the reason dragonflies areimportant and wonderful is they eat mosquitoes.
That you see them darting around theair. That's what they're doing. They
don't just eat mosquitos. But that'swhat I care the most about. All
(28:42):
the little annoying flies and nets yea, and our beautiful bats. We have
a huge, well, actually it'sa small colony of bats under the wall
bridge downtown Houston. It's about twohundred and fifty thousand bats they figure,
which is a small colony, whichis kind of mind bolligaint two hu fiftys.
It's still really cool to watch.If you haven't watched it, you
(29:03):
gotta go out there one night now, don't make it. Well, make
this mistake to spend more time there. But it's actually not a sunset that
you'll see them. You get someearly risers that need to go to their
bathroom and flutter out, but it'sreally right after the sun has disappeared behind
the horizon that you'll see them comeout and they funnel out, they twirl
in the air. These bats areabsolutely spectacular, and there is not an
(29:26):
insect in the air once they've gone. They literally eat everything in the air.
It's just if you ride I ridemy bike under that bridge at the
end of the afternoon and you haveto keep your mouth closed because of all
the little insects that are there eatingthe guano. If you ride your bike
in the evening right after they've left, there is nothing in the air,
nothing, They've eaten everything. They'reamazing little creatures. Anyway, folks,
(29:49):
if you want more information about theHouston Botanic Garden. Go to HBG dot
org HBG dot org and if youhave any questions really to Houston, PA,
you're more than welcome to Just sendme an email Texan from France at
gmail dot com and I will sendyou an answer. Thank you for listening
(30:10):
and caring about the issues that puton this show. My name is Laurent
I am the Texan from France andthis has been Houston PA, Houston's public
affairs show, Houston Strong.
Welcome to Houston, PA. Houston'spublic affairs show, an iHeartMedia broadcast.
Our disclaimer says that the opinions expressedon this show do not necessarily reflect those
hell by this radio station it's managementstaff for any of its advertisers. My
name is Laurent I am the Texanfrom France, and I'm a fan of
(00:27):
the flora and the fauna in thiscountry. I absolutely love the plants and
the beautiful creatures that live in theseplants and pollinate these plants in the Houston
area. And we're one of thecities that has started to talk about being
a little bit better stewards of oursurroundings and of our nature by talking about
(00:47):
topics such as planting native species ofplants and grasses on our property. If
you buy a piece of property andit's barren and you want to build a
house on it, try not todestroy all the trees. Only take down
the trees that would be where yourhouse is going to sit in the future.
All those little things that go rightdown to not throwing your cigarette out
(01:11):
the window when you're driving. Don'tdo anything bad or violent to those people.
I know that That's how I feel. I feel like I wish I
was an eighteen wheeler here and Iwouldn't stop. I would just kind of
go over them for throwing their cigarettebutt out the window. But I don't
drive an eighteen wheeler, so thankgoodness. My guests today are here from
the Houston Botanic Gardens. They areonline at HBG dot org HBG dot org.
(01:38):
This is a fantastic little paradise southof downtown. It is a place
where you can go from one biometo another just by taking a short walk.
It's mostly native species, but alsoa bunch of demonstrations, so to
speak. It's almost like museum piecesof little biospheres to demonstrate to the beauty
(02:00):
and variety of our world and alsojust to inspire people to take care of
it and take a look at it. My guests are Aaron Mills. She
is the education manager for Houston BotanicGardens, and Justin Lacy is their director
of Communications for Houston Botanic Gardens.They're going to have an interesting symposium coming
up on November eleventh with a fellownamed doctor Doug Telemy. He is a
(02:24):
conservationist and he is going to talkabout making homegrown national parks you can turn
your backyard into a little national parkby following some simple, commonly reasonable methods
of planting native species. For instance, we'll talk about that. They have
a beautiful new exhibit that has justopened. It's called Glass and Flight.
(02:45):
These are glass butterflies that was sculptedby an artist from Tucson. Her name
is Alex Herveri. And well,let me ask you justin this is one
of those collections of sculptures that aremade with stained glass and steel, and
so basically it's a game of lighton top of a game of culture,
of sculpture and culture it is,and it's one of those things that you
(03:07):
really have to come back and seemore than once, because as the weather
changes, as the position of thesun changes, each of those sculptures is
going to look a little bit different. And the artist actually has designed them,
and she came and placed them herselfon the site so that they would
be responsive to the sun in uniqueways. Yeah, and as they do
that, you know, so manyand Aaron will talk about this later,
but so many insects have those kindof iridescent or transparent portions of their wings,
(03:30):
and so these sculptures, you know, mimic that and really are quite
beautiful at any time of day,but we encourage people to come and check
them out multiple times. We havethe way we represent nature can be very
beautiful, but it turns into somethingcompletely different. You take a glass butterfly
and you look at the actual butterfly, and it seems like the work of
(03:52):
Mother Nature is so much more intricateand beautiful. Butterflies are pretty amazing.
I think we completely ignore the factthat they're among the most important pollinators in
our area and we literally have millions, billions over our lifetimes, billions of
these butterflies that travel over five thousandmiles to South America. It's insane.
They fly over the Gulf of Mexico. It's practically unimaginable. And we'll get
(04:15):
into that a little bit more.You had this this exhibit about the monarch
butterfly, which is the migrating butterfly, and you had a dance performance commissioned.
Did you commission or they just theyjust brought it to the place.
Well, so Open Dance Project isbased here locally, and we have partnered
with them in the past, andso we were just kind of talking about
trying to partner again and this isactually a piece that they originally put together
(04:40):
to do in San Antonio at ConfluencePark, and so they basically added us
to the schedule and it just sohappened it worked out where we got to
go before San Antonio, so wewound up we wound up premiering a piece
that was actually done for someone else, and we did it for two evenings
in the Garden and it was justincredible. We stayed open a little bit
later than normal, we had familiesout and open dance. If you've never
(05:00):
seen them before, very contemporary andvery immersive, so you know, the
garden basically serves as one a memberof the troop in some ways, and
so they literally people follow them aroundlike they it's not a seated performance that
you're following them around. They're dancinglike right, you know, right in
front of you. And it wasjust super meaningful. They literally kind of
(05:21):
as a troop, you know,did things individually. They did things where
they you know, kind of flutteredtogether for lack of a better word,
but it really was it was designedto and their costumes, the colors and
everything so indicative of you know,especially monarchs and what we think of them.
It was just an incredible time.I mean, I was out there
and I'm out there every day,and it just felt different. It felt
(05:44):
better the way that people were enjoyingthe space and seeing the performance like that.
That brought to life something that isin some ways so unfathomable for us.
And it's and it's kind of scopeand scale. It's kind of unusual
to do something like that, andit is a very cool way to experience
performing arts like that too, also, especially since you know, if it
turns out it's not something that you'reinto all that much, you can look
(06:05):
around and admire the plants. Therewere definitely some folks doing that, and
that's perfectly that's fine. That's perfectlyfine. And of course, if you're
in a theater and you're watching dance, you don't like you're not allowed to
use your phone anyway. Justin letme ask you. I mentioned that the
space the Houston Botanic Garden is arrangedin basically sections of they're like different biomes.
(06:30):
Go ahead and do that for us, Explain it to us in a
way that actually makes sense. Andsince you know what you're talking about,
but you're basically recreating the Houston biomeas best as possible, but you have
areas that are from on the otherside of the planet. Yeah, and
so what we're really trying to dois celebrate the diversity of our city in
the plant palette of the garden.So we have a space that's called the
(06:50):
Global Collection Garden. I like tosay, it's your opportunity to go around
the world in three acres and muchless than eighty days, although again we
encourage people to come back often,so they could certainly spend eighty days in
the garden enjoying it. But wehave tropical, subtropical, and arid plants
literally from around the world. Myother kind of joke is that we have
plants from every continent except Antarctica,although given the time we've had since we
(07:14):
opened in twenty twenty, we mighthave done well to bring in a couple
of Antarctic plants as well with thosefreezes. But yes, and a lot
of it is regionally themed. Sowe have a tropical area in the center,
and you can get down into that. It's the lowest point in the
garden and you are in this tropicalenvironment. You can't see anything else,
you know, you hear the bananaleaves blowing around you. I mean it's
very immersive, and then just stepsaway you can be out in Arizona surrounded
(07:41):
by boulders that look like the GrandCanyon, a variety of agaves and cacti
and things like that. And soyou know, we're finding a lot of
people. I think when we openduring the pandemic especially, and people weren't
traveling as much, they were reallyappreciative of that sense of traveling within this
space and being able to see theseplants. We have an area with bamboo
where again, I mean you canget into that bamboo, you can't see
(08:03):
beyond it. It has a uniquesound. But you're also growing plants from
other parts of the planet, forinstance bamboo, and bamboo is scary because
certain kinds of bamboo spread like wildfireand it's almost actually it's worse than wildfire
because wildfire has a cleansing and fertilizingeffect, whereas the bamboo just takes it
takes a lot of water. Soyou must be very careful about what kind
(08:26):
of bamboo you've planted. Some ofthem don't spread very easily at all,
and they're fantastic, especially if youwant to hide from the neighbors and those
would be the varieties that we have, okay, and yes we worked.
So the garden was designed by alandscape design firm called West eight actually out
of the Netherlands, but they partneredwith local landscapers who are able to make
(08:48):
really informed plant decisions and plants.So the you know, the garden the
West State has this really big visionand then the locals come in and say,
okay, within that vision, theseare plants that you want. And
now we did do some experiment aswell. Not with the bamboo. We
went with the non clumping or wewent with the clumping varieties. Sorry,
but but in some other areas andwith the freezes, we've some of that
experimenting, you know, has hasproven not to work out, but there
(09:11):
were things that they at least wantedto try again. That's part of our
mission. You know, we're doingeducation, we're doing discovery, and so
we want to have the natives toshow that side, but we also want
to have things to kind of eitherinspire or just help people see, you
know, even for a short time. You know, we did an experiment
with lavender that hasn't really been workingout, and so I think we'll be
replacing that with something else. Butyou know, the garden is always growing
(09:33):
and it's always changing its nature.You know, on display, lavender is
not only beautiful, but the smellthat permiahd air is absolutely wonderful from the
south of France, and obviously wehad lavender in the garden and you can
it's kind of like mint. Ifyou run your fingers over it, you
get the smell of it in yourhands, and it lasts for hours,
and it's just it's it's an amazingplant, absolutely amazing plant. After you
(09:58):
mentioned the freeze, you obviously losta ton of plants. Inevitably. Did
the native species come back faster thanthe non native species? Many of them
did. Yes, that's the pointwe're making here. It is the point.
And like I said, you know, our horticulture staff, who are
really talented and have diverse backgrounds themselves, are looking at that, and I
(10:18):
think there will be some things wherewe will bring in more natives, perhaps
even than we had before. Becauseof that. The things that I saw,
you know, there was just completedevastation, Like personally, yeah,
but then just I appreciate nature somuch more now, just even because of
what I've seen since February twenty one. That's greable. We have banana plants
that died to the ground. Wedidn't replant them. They're back to I
(10:39):
mean, they're way over your headand they're fruiting and doing all these things.
And so you know that is something. For as devastating as it seemed
in the moment, I think it'sbeen just a great story in the world.
Well, the point being that itwasn't all that devastating. It's just
that we're just obsessing over it everyhour of the day. It's extremely unhealthy.
(11:00):
It causes us to overreact in thedumbest ways. And once you've overreacted
and you've launched yourself in the wrongdirection, think of a rocket. It's
like momentum. You got to slowdown before you can turn around, and
psychologically, educationally, slowing down misinformationtakes twice as long. It's just an
incredible mistake that you end up payingfor in the long run and for a
(11:24):
long time. But I'm just I'mvery fond of reminding ourselves that a lot
of these things are completely beyond ourcontrol and what we can control, or
often subjects that we don't talk aboutenough, like, for instance, making
sure that maybe if you have abackyard, you have some plants that the
butterflies will want to land in becausethat's gonna embellish the area. But embellishing
(11:48):
the area, of course, meansthat it also becomes more fruitful and safer
and saner for all of us.You are listening to Houston PA, Houston's
Public Affairs Show. My name isLaurent and my guests are here from Houston
Botanic Garden. They're online at HBGdot org. HBG dot org. You
(12:09):
can also become a member. That'sa great way to support this organization,
and especially if you think you livein the neighborhood or you like driving in
that area and you'd like to justdrop in on a regular basis wait out
the traffic. My guest are AaronMills. She is the education manager for
the Houston Botanic Garden, and JustinLacy is their director of communications. Aaron,
(12:33):
let's talk about these butterflies, becauseI know you're an entomologist, and
that is someone who studies bugs exactlyso you're not grossed out by bugs.
We've already mentioned that we like cockroaches. We recognize their use. They're actually
magnificent. I feel like cockroaches area little bit like alligators. They're so
ugly. They're magnificent. It isa beautiful it's just it's ugly to us.
(12:56):
They're ecologically yeah, very important,they're insanely they're just very very interesting.
And of course we associate them withdirt and dirty and slime, and
they're not dirty at all, actually, unless learn to take advantage of our
environments and our free food and afree harbridge that we offer them when they're
like at cald outside. But it'snice in here and look there there's crumbs
(13:18):
and you know, who needs needsto be outside. So they're just smart,
that's all. They're about as dirtyas your house too, that's one
of the things. And they're edible, although that's not something that I'm interested
in. Yeah, but we let'stalk about the butterflies though, because they're
actually beautiful, well at least pasttheir lava stage. They're kind of they're
achy to Yeah, but you understandthat people think the stuff is ichy,
(13:39):
right, I'm with you. Ithink it's fascinating, but you've learned.
These little creatures start like a littlethey look like little worms with feet,
a bunch of little palls. Thecaterpillars are just so variable and really fascinating.
I mean, they can run fromanything from looking like bird poop to
(14:00):
looking like little snakes with you know, big ice spots on their head or
being camouflaged. Some of them lookright, but that pokemon hats on.
Yeah, there's so many, andso some might look kind of icky,
but some look absolutely beautiful, andyou know, some look like a twig.
So they're just they're extremely variable,just like their adult forms are,
so they're just as fascinating. Infact, there's there's something called the caterpillar
(14:24):
Lab and it's out of a university. Of course I can't think of it
right now, but they feature differentpictures of you know, caterpillars all the
time, so if you follow themon social media, you'll get to see
all sorts of really cool caterpillars.So they really focus on that life stage.
It's pretty fun. Now, wethink this is pretty basic, but
the truth is that I'm constantly remindedthat when it comes to the natural order
(14:45):
of things, we're all ignorant onsome subjects. And I don't think people
understand that butterflies aren't born as butterflies. You have to explain this process because
I know, but if you havea kid in the car, listen to
this. It's amazing. They literallyapp themselves in a cocoon and it's it's
just it's unbelievable and it's beautiful towatch. A butterfly does not a moth
(15:07):
can help. The very hungry caterpillaris mislet us all. So, like
the silk words sand from leon,I think makers. Yeah, right,
A butterfly is a like a nakedpupa basically is nothing surrounding it. It's
called a chrysalis. So if youever heard the term chrysalis, yes,
that's the word for chrysalis comes fromthe Greek word chrysos, meaning gold,
(15:30):
And so a lot of butterfly chrysaliswill have actually little flecks of gold in
there, you know, kind ofbuilt into their skin. So we're not
exactly sure why, but you knowa lot of it probably has to do
with like optical illusion and camouflage andyou know, kind of throwing off predators.
But butterflies a chrysalis. So somy whole career I've been correcting it.
So what's the difference. So acocoon is actually it's like a it's
(15:54):
like a protective thing around the pupilstage. So mostly it's usually made out
of silk, so a moth,you know, and some moths, not
all, but like moths in thegiant silk moth family, the saturn neids,
they will be up in their hostplant and they'll kind of crawl and
they'll pull in a couple of theleaves and they'll weave the silk all the
way around and make like a littlecapsule, and then inside they'll form their
(16:17):
pupa. And flies do it,so you know, different insects make cocoons.
It's just basically a protect protective pacingaround their pupa. The silk of
the moth is incredibly strong. It'sone of those things we know that spiders
we have very strong filament, butit is easy for human to break if
(16:38):
you've ever walked through some, butsilk won't act that way. You could
actually cut your finger on it.It's it's extremely strong and it's an extraordinary
little creature, absolutely amazing domesticated insectthe silk. So there's a cruel aspect
(16:59):
to this. In order to harvestthe silk, we have to kill the
bug and it's pupa because of coursewhen it comes out, it cuts the
strings, it destroys, so wehave to boil them up and then they
I guess they unravel it. It'sjust it's just absolutely insane. But so
the butterflies become a pupa crystalis crystalisAnd how long do they stay in that
(17:23):
stage? Roughly two weeks It dependson the species, but it's you know,
ten to fourteen days. Also dependson temperature, and if they're not
well hidden, a bird is justgoing to swoop down and eat it.
No, not necessarily, birds don'ttypically go for the crysalis, but I
mean most of them are very wellcamouflaged or otherwise you know, have have
(17:45):
some markings or things on them thatmake them look, yeah, very distasteful.
But a lot of butterflies, alot of them are distasteful in the
first place because most of I meana lot of them feed on toxic plants.
And if they don't feed in toxicplants, they mimic one feeds on
toxic plants, So they can bevery tricky. Is the monarch butterfly one
of those? Yes, they eattoxic plants. Now, what's the name
(18:07):
of that plant? The one that'sparticularly weed, milk weed. So if
you plant milkweed in your garden,you will get monarchs. Yeah. Absolutely,
it's probably one of the very easiestand you know, most quick you
know, as soon as you plantthe plant, you're probably gonna start seeing
monarch. Some butterflies will take awhile to find your your little patch of
host plants. But monarchs are,they're on it, and they're on their
(18:30):
way somewhere else. They are they'vearrived. They should they should be arriving
now in Mexico where from from allover the United States all the way up
to Canada. So a lot ofthe ones from here though they stay,
they don't have to go anywhere.Uh, they all pass through here.
But we do have in Texas,especially where we live in along the Gulf
(18:52):
coast, sort of like a stationarypopulation north of US. And like I
said, extending all the way upinto canadu is where the monarchs come from.
And so during up in Canada,as early as August they begin to
so let's say, you know,in late August, those butterflies will emerge
and they'll go into a reproductive diapause. So that means they're not interested in
(19:15):
the opposite sex at all. Theyare just gonna fly and they're a little
bit larger, their wings are sturdier, a little bit morphologically different from their
parents, and they are they justthey drink water and they feed on nectar.
But they just have one thing inmind, and that's reaching Mexico and
that from Canada. It just itblows my mind. It's just crazy the
(19:38):
ocean. They fly through weather andyou know, weather events and all sorts
of things. And if you're luckyyou live, you know, in Central
Texas is kind of they like,you know, from everywhere east of the
Rockies. They all they all kindof you know, are coming from all
these different places, but they sortof funnel together through kind of Central Texas.
(19:59):
Some along the Golf Coast, Soa lot of places along the Gulf
coast we'll see these big swarms ofmonarchs. We'll see, you know,
a slight increase in monarch activity.So like I was in the garden and
I saw like eight monarchs on youknow, one little patch of flowers,
and I was like, oh,they're you know, they're kind of coming
through right now. Other parts ofTexas still see the big clouds of monarchs.
So around the beginning of November,they'll arrive and that kind of syncs
(20:23):
up with Dia delo Smertos, whichis today and you know, tonight and
tomorrow being celebrated. The arrival ofthe monarchs is a big part of that,
so it's kind of very symbolic ofthose souls returning. So it's pretty
cool. Do we know how theyknow where to go? There's theories,
Yeah, we don't basically get atthem. Magnetic fields, pheromone trails,
(20:49):
all of those types of things thatwe we can't hardly comprehend. HBG dot
org. HBG dot org, especiallyin this fall weather, which is going
to last through May, I think, because it's November now and basically depending
on your perspective, from November toMay, it's either a fall or spring
in Texas, but it's not winterall right. You are listening to Houston
(21:15):
PA, Houston's Public Affairs Show.My name is Laurent. My guest are
here from Houston Botanic Garden. AaronMills is the education manager and Justin Lacy
is their director of communication. Justinyou mentioned that you're more of a literary
mind and you're not a green thumbby nature, apparently, which puts you
pretty much in the same category thatI sit in. But my mom is
(21:37):
a green thumb, and so theexperience that you're having in the botanic garden
is akin to the one I havewhen I just walk around the garn with
my mom. She has one ofthose signs in front of the property.
It's a natural preserve, like youcan apply and they have some rules.
You have to have x percentage ofnatural native plants, and that percentage in
my mother's garden is one hundred percentexcept for the darnwiz that she's killing one
(22:02):
by one, sometimes literally one byone. Well, you know, one
thing that I've learned in my timethere, and that we've talked a lot
about, is that everybody has aplant story, and we love for people
to share their plant stories. Andand I didn't even really think about it
that way myself until I started workingthere. But my maternal grandmother was lived
very near the Dallas Arbreedham and PotanicalGarden, which is you know, wondrous,
(22:26):
beautiful, Yeah, And she hada home garden and she would take
us there when we were kids tosee the botanical garden. And you know,
I didn't think about that of courseat that time, that that would
ever be something so relevant to me. Yeah, and then my paternal grandfather,
you know, grew fruit and vegetablesout in the backyard and you know
we never bought store strawberry jam becausewe had you know, for strawberry preserves
(22:49):
and all that. But again,you don't think about those things in the
moment. But like, everybody hasa plant story or plant stories, and
you know, that's something that welove too about being such a global garden
is knowing that our visitors are comingfrom all over for them to come and
see plants that meant something to them, maybe where they grew up and maybe
that they don't have as much accessto here, and just those memories that
(23:10):
come out well and the kind oftake a trip around the world. It's
interesting to see the plants that arefrom around here and recognize that we've seen
them around Aha, those people haveplanted those things in their backyard. What
kind of gets me going is thoselawns that are made the grasses that aren't
native and require literally tons, hundredsof thousands of tons of water. Leaders
(23:33):
after leaders, and you know,those sprinklers that are going off in the
middle of the afternoon in the middleof conservation times. These are the sort
of subjects that we should be ableto politely talk about. But if we
did so, then we wouldn't havethese problems anymore. Imagine that. But
you know another thing on that storytoo. So the garden site was a
(23:55):
golf course before municipal golf course,and so in the time since the gardens
has taken on the lease for theproperty and has started the transformation. I
know we've been talking about butterflies,but we have a great bird story to
tell too. Houston autubonn has theirRaptor and Education center just across the bio
from the site, so they comeonce a month and do a bird count,
and they were doing that back whenit was a golf course. In
(24:17):
the time since the golf course,you know, transitioned out and the garden
has come in, more than doublethe number of bird species that have been
seen. I mean, just incredible. You know, people think I would
be one that would say, well, a golf course, it's nature,
it's outdoors. It's not. Imean, it's a heavily chemically treated space.
Yep, it's very unnatural in somany ways. And that's one of
the other great stories about the gardenis we're taking this outdoor space and we're
(24:40):
letting it go back to nature orattack for so much biodiversity. I mean,
I see just so much all thetime, so many species of insects
that I'm like, wow, haveI even seen that? But yeah,
I don't think I've seen. It'sso encouraging that it's very encouraging to me
because we're constantly confronted with our predictionsof the end of the world coming in
(25:03):
twelve years and other really stupid thingslike that, Oh my goodness, and
then we're confronted with the daily obsessionsof droughts and ice storms and water,
and we seem to completely ignore thatno matter what calamity befalls nature, she
comes right back. It's just wehad a huge rout and it rained half
a day and it didn't even rainvery hard. In my neighborhood. The
(25:26):
next day the grass was half greenagain. It's kind of extraordinary. It's
almost like you could sit there andwatch the green spread through the leaf.
Anyway, go to the Houston BotanicGarden. We didn't talk about this very
much, but doctor Doug Telemy,who is a conservationist is going to do
a symposion on November eleventh. He'sgoing to talk about homegrown National Park.
(25:48):
Just real quick, Aaron, whatdoes that mean? A homegrown National Park?
So, according to doctor p Ttoleomy, but you know, it's kind
of common knowledge we've been talking about, is that the American lawn, you
know, is taking up you know, millions of acres of land that could
be native plants, that could bewildlife habitat. And so I don't know
(26:10):
the numbers off the top of myhead, but the acreage of lawn are
you know, far exceed the acreageof the national parks that we actually do
have. So by the simple stepsof planting a garden, choosing native plants,
choosing certain native plants, which hecalls keystone species, which are species
that support a lot of biodiversity.So, you know, pollinators and caterpillars,
(26:33):
caterpillars back to, caterpillars are foodare the biggest transfers of energy from
plants, you know, to youknow, up through the food chains.
So birds, I think, youknow, one little chickadee chick can take
you know, two thousand or socaterpillars. It can eat two thousand or
so caterpillars, you know, toget to adulthood. And that's just one
tiny bird. So caterpillars are soimportant. So a big part of what
(26:56):
he talks about is planting plants forcaterpillars, host plants, and then yeah,
plants for pollinators and things like that. So he's going to be there
talking about Homegrown National Park and whatyou can do. He's a wonderful speaker.
It's going to be really entertaining.The whole event. We're calling Celebrating
Conservation because we are having some localpeople come in and tell their stories.
(27:19):
So the Houston Zoo is going tobe there talking about some of their conservation
success, Galveston Bay Estuary Program,which is going to take care of our
watersheds our coastline, and also andI'm really excited about two local schools,
Our School and Katie and then anelementary school, garden Villa Elementary School.
(27:40):
They're going to be talking about theirconservation efforts and their just local their school
gardens. So they're working with theNational Wildlife Federation and some of their initiatives
to you know, to get theirschool gardens going. And they have some
great stories of how it's impacted thestudents, how it's you know, it's
helped them, how it's impacted thelocal wildlife. So they're to be that's
(28:00):
going to be really interesting to hearabout. So you'll get to hear all
of that little happy hour white bites, and then we'll listen to doctor Tellomy.
So it's gonna be a great event. You know, this kind of
stuff is not life changing in theway that it changes your whole life in
a dramatic way, but it's oneof those small building blocks that that helps
you look at the world in adifferent way. For example, dragonflies.
(28:21):
A bunch of people are afraid ofdragonflies. We were talking about the Glass
and Flight exhibit that is currently showingat Houston Botanic Garden. They've got glass
dragonflies. And the reason dragonflies areimportant and wonderful is they eat mosquitoes.
That you see them darting around theair. That's what they're doing. They
don't just eat mosquitos. But that'swhat I care the most about. All
(28:42):
the little annoying flies and nets yea, and our beautiful bats. We have
a huge, well, actually it'sa small colony of bats under the wall
bridge downtown Houston. It's about twohundred and fifty thousand bats they figure,
which is a small colony, whichis kind of mind bolligaint two hu fiftys.
It's still really cool to watch.If you haven't watched it, you
(29:03):
gotta go out there one night now, don't make it. Well, make
this mistake to spend more time there. But it's actually not a sunset that
you'll see them. You get someearly risers that need to go to their
bathroom and flutter out, but it'sreally right after the sun has disappeared behind
the horizon that you'll see them comeout and they funnel out, they twirl
in the air. These bats areabsolutely spectacular, and there is not an
(29:26):
insect in the air once they've gone. They literally eat everything in the air.
It's just if you ride I ridemy bike under that bridge at the
end of the afternoon and you haveto keep your mouth closed because of all
the little insects that are there eatingthe guano. If you ride your bike
in the evening right after they've left, there is nothing in the air,
nothing, They've eaten everything. They'reamazing little creatures. Anyway, folks,
(29:49):
if you want more information about theHouston Botanic Garden. Go to HBG dot
org HBG dot org and if youhave any questions really to Houston, PA,
you're more than welcome to Just sendme an email Texan from France at
gmail dot com and I will sendyou an answer. Thank you for listening
(30:10):
and caring about the issues that puton this show. My name is Laurent
I am the Texan from France andthis has been Houston PA, Houston's public
affairs show, Houston Strong.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.