I visited family in Odessa, TX and they were so excited to show me "how big the city has gotten" and all I could think was, "I get that this whole landscape is hellish, but why do all the new buildings have to be hideous too?"
its weird when ppl paint growth as a positive like who says we want new ppl? fortunately folks seem to somewhat have cottoned on and are urging ppl to go to OKC instead
I'm sure that everyone else here is also just in awe of the integrity and passion of these guys, knowledgeable, open, and still humble and humorous in the face of such habitat destruction. Massive respect for you guys doing what you're doing, so good to know you'd be doing it anyway without a camera in your face. Fantastic.
My favorite videos of yours are when you're interacting with other botanists. But I still love the solo ranting and cussing at lawns and parking lots, don't get me wrong!
Yo Joey, thanks for your work. Publicise these plant rescue ops ahead of time. There are a number of us plant rehabilitators out here who are game, knowledgeable and retired(mobile easily). I would like to help. We need to sell the idea of planting these natives in the beds of the eyesore buildings.
The amount of habitat destruction in Texas and especially DFW is disgusting. Born and raised here so I can say it. I know Randy Johnson and appreciate his knowledge and love for native plants! Thanks for the work you're all doing to educate people.
You were hangin' with two good humans! Scraping building sites was an idea I had back in the eighties. Didn't work out for me but I'd encourage anyone to pursue that business model!
These guests are great humans! I grew up in FL with lots of nature. Now it's wall to wall concrete and landscaped stuff that isn't native. Wish I knew then what I know now. I'd have been a happy nature guerilla. Save those plants and ecosystems!! ❤
This area has some really cool plants, it's sad to see it slated for destruction. I was at this site a few months back when several local groups got together for a rescue mission, primarily targeting Dalea hallii. We were able to collect several hundred plants, but there is so much more still there. I collected some specimens of the Yucca, Liatris and Penstemon, and they are now part of my landscape in Dallas. It really is a shame that so many of these plants get completely looked over, they make WAY better landscape plants than the garbage that's available at most nursery's and big box stores.
I grew up less >20 mins from Garland. every time I go back to visit my hometown my heart just breaks just remembering the grassy fields sprawling in every direction, especially outside my grandparents' home. newer homes are towering and shoved close together, walking through a neighborhood is like being surrounded by prison walls to keep nature "outside". you can't see anything beyond them. additionally, there is an awfully large amount of crap being developed over there- just hostile, thoughtless and stupid ugly crap. just its difficult to visit while remembering how it was. off HWY 78 on the way into town there's a known hill where bluebonnets flower and on top of it they built a big ugly SPECS.
Love the opening, an homage to capitalism. A "digital retail Center" is code for Amazon. A building identical to that was built about 12 miles from me.
It's far more than just Amazon. There are a bunch of large datacenter companies. Amazon is one, and not the largest. Equinox, century link, qts, Kddi are a few of the dozen largest. All of them chew up land, and waste water too. NSA has a bunch too.
If it's verbatim 'Digital Realty', it's gonna be a datacenter, i.e a node where internet provider infrastructure meets to be able to connect to each other, sorta like a telephone exchange if you know what that is.
My husband is from Garland and said “He nailed it.” Please come to Costa Rica! (More specifically Santa Teresa because we have unchecked growth and a lot of soil and plant life being destroyed in an area that is rare dry rainforest) but it’s no Garland that’s for sure! It’s still very beautiful here.
I've rescued some great native plants from construction sites. Nothing endangered (yet), but all lovely, and all living happily in my xeric flower beds.
We ain't doomed lol imagine thinking humans are that important they can end everything 😂 nah we can't even exterminate ourselves, or we would've by now.
I 2nd that emotion on the Ligustrum (aka privet). It's taking over my small Texas town right this minute! Truly, it's an evil plant here in our country!! (It's from Japan & has nothing here to stop it.) Their leaves make their own glyphosate (aka Round Up weed killer) and I've seen the ligustrum roots literally wrapped around other tree roots to kill them off. I saw a nice big oak tree, with a trunk 2 feet across, surrounded by a stand of privet, the oak is loosing. Those murderous plants are blatantly killing it ! I've been doing what I can to save the oak, but I'm not sure it's going to work, might be too late... But I won't stop trying!!! The really stupid thing is the nurseries STILL SELL IT to homeowners all over the state!!! And there aren't any warnings that come with it either.
You guys are doing great work. We have to try and save whatever we can, it does make a big difference. You and these other gentlemen are heroes to me and many others. Thanks for spreading the word and making entertaining content all these years Joey.
This is awesome. I have been collecting out of the fields around my house just ahead of development. I have collected for transplant 10 to 20 variety of plants every summer for the past 4 years. They all end up in my yard. I don't consider them collected until they return the following year.
I have a field near my house with a tree that is uncommon to my area a Hercules club AKA tooth tree. It may survive a little while it's right on the edge of the roadside median and the property being developed. I would have already tried to take it but my yard is small enough as is. I have to stick with the little flowering guys.
every time i go take trips back to places ive lived, i find every secluded area replaced with gas stations and copy+paste condos. i want to vomit. glad to hear such a hopeful outlook at the end there. side note: i loved how during the explanations, everyone was petting dog (:
These warehouse prisons are popping up all over the San Bernardino area in California. So many beautiful desert landscapes being demolished for that. The worst part is seeing all the fauna around here being posted on iNaturalist but in spots that are soon going to be covered up with a warehouse. Around the Jurupa hills in riverside county a colony of nearly 13,000 year old palmers oak are being threatened with these concrete prisons. Hate seeing these beautiful lands be destroyed
Thank you for raising awareness on this! I think you should make a petition to save those oaks, 13,000 years old, that's amazing. I wish to know more about it.
For broken tap roots, might you be able to carefully coat the broken area with paraffin wax or something more mild like coconut oil, which is anti bacterial, to seal the broken area only and serve as a barrier to infection etc.? Just thinking.
Great video, and great shout out to the folks you featured here and the Native Habitat Project. Thanks! I really appreciate your approach. I work in rail labor (building the tracks). For railroaders to see someone like them sharing awesome knowledge helps bust down barriers to learning more and taking our effect on our environment seriously. You share info like any track gang guy would from Corwith Yard, Clearing, or Proviso Yard. It's great. I work in Nebraska now, near the Sand Hills. It'd be great to see you up there, around the saline marshes around here (getting developed like the limestone prairie in Garland), or up in the sagebrush steppe in the Panhandle. Keep up the great work!
You’re in Texas again , this is a privilege . Thanks for all the info. I’ve seen all these plants and didn’t know limestone prairie could be found no where else in the U. S. (I’ve lived here since 1992 and there was none of this massive development going on even as late as the early 2000’s. ) On my daily walks with my dog through walking trails and parks , you can find an abundance of amazing native flowering plants hidden in the grass or in the taller shrubs growing along the creek .
I am an east Texen from the piney woods. I hate how people are moving here because we are one of the only thriving state left. They are killing our beautiful and fragile land. I am only 40 but the changes make me cry! So I also do my part to plant native. Thanks for the Texas love! If you are heading east swing by Longview. They just cleared some of the oldest farm land to make a …… not sure yet they just tore down all the building and the old trees. Come see where our parking lot is going to be.
I think those Osage oranges are what we called horse apples when I was a kid. They had latex in the outer layer and fuzzy stuff around the seeds in the center, and weren't good for anything except throwing at other kids or random stuff like fire hydrants. Some kids threw them at cars but that latex might hurt paint, idk. My favorite thing to throw them at was wooden fence-posts with a barb-wire fence, and if a chunk got stuck on a barb that was extra points.
I know every plant & fruit has a purpose. However, as a suburban kid in America, the most, no, the ONLY use we ever got out of them was having fun throwing them at each other!! As a side note, I very much like the shape of those old trees. They're pretty cool looking when they get quite big. They have a nice umbrella shape canapy that looks pleasant from far away. And up close, with the branches bending down to the ground from the weight of their big fruits, that creates a natural club house type of space under that canapy. And usually, the branches are so heavily leafed that people can't see inside the club house when you're in it! As a kid, I really liked those trees. As an adult (sadly) I just enjoy looking at it from afar.
I have the Missouri primrose (macrocarpa, formerly Missouriensis) in a bunch of different places in my landscaping. Beautiful flowers, super tough, happy to spread, pretty foliage, bright pink stems and silvery-green leaves when it's growing, and of course those visually interesting seed pods. I have it in the little hell strip at the base of my mailbox, surrounded by concrete, no water, no attention besides some cardboard sheet mulching around it to smother the bermuda grass, and it's so happy there and so beautiful. The flowers open up in the evening and almost seem like they're glowing.
Welcome to the area. I'm sorry. Do you have coordinates for the area to save some of the plants? I got a coupla hori knives and some blackland clay prairie yard I'm trying to convert to natives from bermuda grass.
#LoveEarth♥ Teachers, I believe, are the most responsible and important members of society because their professional efforts affect the fate of the earth. It is clear to me that unless we connect directly with the earth, we will not have the faintest clue why we should save it. The future of our children is a trust we have been given. To conserve and grow, not to squander wastefully on needless excesses. The earth is a trust, to protect and to honor. Our home, our livelihood, our future rests in the quality of our stewardship. Let us become better stewards. Helen Caldicott
That's tilt-up construction. Looks like nothing's there for about 6-8 months, then over the course of a week, there's a huge building. Source: Me - I worked building these for a bit
The outro was pretty spot on too, heartbreaking how little respect and knowledge people have about the sheer amount of beauty and complexity that real life and ecosystems have. I hope one day very soon people start caring a little more for long term solutions and stop going after the easy money, because when the ecosystem is strong the animals that live on it get stronger too (humans are animals too)
Cars, stores, tecnology and squared houses only with ciment...is missing something...just like good air to breath, plants,mushrooms, butterflyies, bees, Bumblebees,...
Why are developers seemingly invincible?! How in the hell can we stop this shit? I can't even get my own friends and family to watch a 30 seconds tiktok about this shit. god dammit
having the full force of a world economy, every level of government, and local cultural approval behind you does a lot to help when you want to pour some concrete.
Think of it this way, the people who have money are the people who own land. The people who own land need to earn more money to buy more land so they develop it into shitty overpriced rentals. They have this money and spend it in order to pass laws that can help them earn more money. The game is rigged bro
thanks for spotlighting our beautiful limestone prairie here in north texas. It's such an uphill battle to preserve ecologies that aren't mountains and rivers and glaciers and forests. People could look at that lot and just see nothing. Really just BLIND and disconnected from the world. Our city planners are determined to make DFW the most dismal place to live.
These guys are doing great work! I cut weeds etc from my yard but I don't plant things can't handle the desert. I really don't plant anything in the ground and I let the sage and lavender do their thing. Some neighbors scrape everything and cover the ground with gravel. We are all on wells and the plants help filter the water. Some of these nice people spray Roundup all over their half acre.
The area all over DFW is being covered over by these giant tilt-wall warehouses . DFW has historically been a transportation hub of railroads and later of major interstates. A huge amount of cheap manufactured goods comes from overseas and is shipped up by rail or road from coastal ports. Many of these humongous warehouses serve as distribution points. Besides the major distribution arteries, we have cheap cement from those very limestone deposits and a lot of cheap land and cheap labor. I wonder if in the not-to-distant future the economy shifts slightly and it becomes suddenly cheaper for goods to take a different path and all these warehouses become empty and derelict /// Regarding privet, there has been a long history of planting it long before the advent of big box stores. Farmers have been using them for years for hedges. I have been told that it was customary to plant a hedge of privet around the "privy" aka the outhouse./// I have not found that P cobaea is all that difficult to grow from seed with 30 days of cold treatment in vermiculite. I didn't notice any damping off and had a pretty high success rate on the seedlings.
My family is from the texas plains. The bult environments are mostly hellish and miserable, your intro was delightfully relatable lol. Check out the palo duro canyon next time youre in Texas, its a beautiful oasis of green in the middle of the brown llano estacado
@ 20:23 I thought that WAS wild onion??? Is it not? I've got a pretty good size patch of those growing over here in my yard. They're one of my favorites! I've also got one that looks the same, except it has pinkish tinge in the petals. Which I thought was a wild type of garlic. But I could be wrong, I'm no botonist! I'm in Central Tx, down South a bit from where you are in this video, in The Hill Country. However, I did grow up quite near Garland. And you're right, Texas DOES love to build a good size parking lot! Sadly, I've watched Texas land turn into pavement for decades. It's all very depressing imo. I wish I were with y'all during this filming, I could easily help out with a place to grow everything they're saving. Even though my soil is a little bit different than that of North Texas, we have less blackland prairie, and more whole limestone rocks in our soil. But the white "roadbase", or crushed up limestone for topsoil is still very prevalent here too. So I'm very sure all those plants would happily grow here. I did not know how difficult it is to grow the penstemons! That penstemon inflorescence looks a lot like the one I've seen growing around here that has the common name of Hill Country Penstemon. Again, one of my favorites!! And it's hard to find for sale. But then, I've never met a penstemon I DIDN'T like!!!
For those plants with underground storage organs the most successful method to translocate them is to remove all above ground parts then to plant them directly into the position they are to be translocated to. Water once to settle in. They will resprout once they have developed enough roots to survive. When planting out nursery grown plants to get best results remove all above ground grow plant and water once. Again they will produce leaves once they have developed a good root system
Bulldozed and scraped down to only be filled with junk filler. Breaks my mind to see the black land prairie soil hauled off 🤯 Living between two eco regions the Black Land Prairies and Edwards Plateau you see the landscape transition within just 2-3 miles. TX 1604 and 151 are being leveled with no end in sight!
Ahaha, 😂, so nice to hear you guys muttering about gulag, when this unique nature around you is being destroyed by the system wildly thirst for profit. Keep it up! 👍 Continue to the next parking lot at another one digital realty center...
I live in Orlando Fl.,where bluebird skies have been replaced by clouds of god knows what ,on a daily basis.WTF is this and what has happened to people that they do not even notice it? Its like havindga five pound tick attached to your neck and you just throw a scarf around it and go on about yourr day.Mind Fin blown!
Sweet so you have a 107 drone pilot license. I didn't even get 150 days in before I lost my drone. I hope you eventually tour that huge-rock wall in Montana. It is on private property & known as the boneyard for having endless prehistoric bones from the massive floods in the end of the ice age. Literally thousands of even mammoth bones in Montana & adjacent to federal wilderness.
