A fox family under the deck, snakes slithering in the stone wall: This Austin landscape architect welcomes them all, even the rock squirrels who root around his vegetable planters. Learn why in this third dispatch of the Humane Gardening Heroes series.
As thousands of people come and go each day on the busy Texas highway near Tait Moring’s home, many other species navigate a slower-paced thoroughfare just outside his back door.
Among those making the daily rounds is a roadrunner who likes to visit the yard’s most popular watering hole—a fountain Moring built from stone—and snack on some lizards while enjoying his libations. Great horned owls stop in for a chat, and a bobcat’s been known to show up on the back deck to check out the scene.
“And for the first time ever, I saw a woodcock!” Moring recently marveled while tallying the list of his favorite visitors. Ground-dwelling birds, woodcocks feed on an abundance of earthworms, often in forested areas with edge habitat. “I had no idea they were even here.”
But given the way he cares for his land, it’s perhaps no surprise that so many creatures want to stop by. Some, like the fox mother who raised her kits in his yard, even make a life here. “She had them under my deck,” Moring says. “It was a lot of fun. They played just like puppies.”
Birds, frogs, and many other animals come for the abundant insects, berries and other food provided by the native plants on the 22-acre property just minutes from downtown Austin. They also find other forms of habitat: Bull snakes slither into gaps in the walls made from stones found on site and gathered from Moring’s childhood rock collection. Little brown salamanders proliferate in the zoysia grass lawn that’s occasionally fertilized with compost but is free of the chemicals that can harm such thin-skinned amphibians. Every year or two a tarantula wanders by.
“Years ago, I really didn’t believe the people that said, ‘Oh, if you just go organic, everything is easier,’ ” says Moring. “I always thought, well, that sounds good, but I don’t believe it. But it really turned out to be true.” Once he began replacing roses, azaleas and other exotics with natives, he noticed less disease and more resilience. “With native plants, if you do have a few aphids or something, well, it doesn’t decimate the plant. A lot of people panic if they see an insect or a disease or something, but usually it kind of takes care of itself.”
A landscape architect with a love of nature, Moring is something of a rare native species himself: an Austin resident who’s actually from Austin. “In fact, I was at a party, and when someone found out I was born here, they’re like, ‘I have never met one of you before.’ ” Raised by parents who appreciated plants, animals, and seasons (his mother grew up on a ranch, his dad on a farm), Moring frequently went hiking and camping with them and gained a head start on his knowledge of wild species.
“When I first started my practice 30 years ago, I was very gung-ho about using natives,” he says. “My parents were big environmentalists and taught me a lot about native plants. Well, you couldn’t find them except for a few things. But it’s much easier now.”
Moring’s own home includes many naturally occurring natives like ashe juniper, red oaks, and live oaks. His innate respect for the interdependencies of plants and animals is apparent when he describes the value of these species to wildlife. Ashe juniper, often thought of as a weed, is critical to the survival of the endangered golden-cheeked warbler, he explains, as the birds use the shedding bark to make their nests. Though Moring hasn’t spotted the species, he hopes to one day; the oak-juniper forests of Central Texas are the only place in the world where they breed.
Texas natives on the property also include prickly pear cacti, red yuccas, native sedges, bigtooth maples, big Muhly grass, and mountain laurels—a bush with beautiful purple blooms and a fragrance Moring likens to that of grape Kool-Aid. (It’s not the mountain laurel in the Kalmia genus that East Coasters would be used to, he notes; the scientific name is Sophora secundiflora.) To help butterflies and other pollinators, he seeds Texas wildflowers and vines, including bluebonnets, gaillardias, wine cups, salvias, blackfoot daisy, primrose, coreopsis, and passionflower. He has an affection for Virginia creeper vine, another species often thought of as a weed despite its gorgeous fall color and abundant berries for birds.
“I like survivors,” he says. “I just like things that are natives because they’re much less likely to have problems.”
Though many Tait Moring & Associates clients embrace natives, Moring has to use his powers of persuasion with others. “I always know if I’m going to put a mesquite tree in somebody’s landscape that I’m going to probably get cussed at,” he says. “I have to talk them into it and try to convince them. It doesn’t always work. I think the last guy said, ‘Over my dead body.’ They’re a beautiful tree, and it’s just that because ranchers have had to fight them for their rangeland, they think they’re an awful tree.”
The turkeys, quail, javelina, and small mammals who take cover in mesquites would agree with Moring, as would the rabbits and coyotes who consume the pods and the bees who pollinate the flowers. And though the species stands accused of interfering with livestock production, it actually provides shade for cows and can enhance soil fertility.
Moring’s defense of mesquites recently persuaded a satisfied customer to add them to a courtyard. “But we still get people that move here from other areas, and it doesn’t matter where they come from; they often want what they had back home,” he says. “I try to gently educate and change minds.”
Moring knows that while humans can easily relocate across the continent, many other species have evolved to make a life only in certain ecological niches. Even those with broader ranges can’t just hop on a plane and relocate when their homes are razed. That knowledge informs his attitude toward all the creatures in his yard, including those others might fear or dismiss. When he finds poisonous coral snakes, he ignores the common advice to kill them and simply moves them deeper into the canyon. When yellow jackets take up residence, he lets them be, remembering the helpful role they play in preying on plant-eating insects.
In nature, there’s a pretty masterful design … Once you get a balance going, everything sort of seems to take care of itself.
Rabbits often graze, sampling the buffet but never decimating anything. Occasionally when Moring has left the gate open to the cultivated area of his property, deer stop by, and recently a coyote came through. His own cats enjoy the great outdoors from a caged-in area. “They think they’re in the wild,” he says. “It protects them from the coyotes and it protects the birds from them.”
Rock squirrels have presented a bit more of a challenge for Moring, whose vegetable planters built from rock just happen to be their preferred habitat. “They’re really cool to watch,” he says. “They can wreak havoc on the vegetable garden, and so the only way that I’ve figured out to deal with that is just to cover everything with chicken wire and little fencing stuff.”
“The squirrels have driven me a little bit crazy,” he says, “but everything seems to have a place. In nature, there’s a pretty masterful design … Once you get a balance going, everything sort of seems to take care of itself.”
Tips Inspired by Tait Moring’s Garden
Recycle on-site materials into functional art.
Moring works not just with the plants indigenous to his property but also with the stone and wood he’s collected there over the years. Rocks left over from client projects have supplemented those found on site to create stone walls and planters. Carved stone found at an abandoned quarry have become columns for holding plant containers and supporting climbing vines. A stock tank made of recycled hardware provides water for wildlife.
Befriend experts.
Texas gardeners and naturalists—especially those in the Austin area—are lucky to be so close to one of the nation’s best resources for wildlife gardening, the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. But most places have botanical gardens and arboretums where you can observe the growth habits of different species. Garden clubs and birding experts can also be wonderful resources, Moring notes, providing information about plants that attract birds and other wildlife.
Celebrate local flora and fauna.
The limestone, granite and thin soils of Texas hill country make for a rugged but lush landscape across 25 counties in the central part of the state. Plants there are uniquely adapted to survive periods of hot, dry weather. Wherever you live, local flora and fauna have evolved for millennia to adapt to soil, moisture and temperature conditions. “To me, every region has its own beauty, and that’s the fun of going somewhere different,” says Moring. “It’s great if Texas looks like Texas and Maryland looks like Maryland, instead of having this homogeneous [landscape] where everything looks the same everywhere.”
Rather than trying to create a dream home for yourself from species originating in distant lands, encourage the ones who’ve already been making a life in your region long before you arrived. “Don’t try to force something that wasn’t meant to be in your region. Embrace your local region as much as you can,” says Moring. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have a favorite plant or something that your grandmother had, but don’t try to recreate the whole environment.”
Texas Resources
Native plant resources: Showcasing native plants of Texas, the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin is also a national treasure, operating the Native Plants Database of species native to the United States and Canada. Searching by scientific or common name, gardeners can access detailed fact sheets about a plant’s natural habitat, distribution, soil and light needs, and benefits to wildlife.
With more than 30 chapters across the state, the Texas Native Plant Society offers a Native Landscape Certification program introducing Texans to best practices for creating habitat using native species.
Wildlife gardening: A helpful guide produced by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Wildscapes: Gardening for Wildlife, provides a basic primer on creating wildlife habitat as well as more specific information on Texas native plants and animals. Though a section on conflict resolution occasionally mentions less humane methods such as trapping and relocating certain species, the book generally encourages conflict prevention and compassion for wildlife living among us.
Pollinator advocacy: The Texas Pollinator PowWow helps communities and individuals protect pollinators and their habitats. Serving as a hub for education, resources, networking opportunities, and information about the latest research in pollinator conservation, the Texas Pollinator PowWow also organizes yearly conferences. Speakers and steering committee members include scientists, horticulturists, natural resource professionals and advocates from universities, government agencies, private institutions and local communities.
Wildlife rehabilitation and humane conflict resolution: Lost, injured and orphaned animals are cared for by rehabbers and organizations around the state, including Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in San Antonio, Austin Wildlife Rescue, and the Houston SPCA. Many provide advice to callers who are unsure if animals are truly in need of help (for example, young wildlife thought be orphaned are often “rescued” unnecessarily by well-meaning people). Some sites also provide helpful resources for humane conflict prevention and resolution.
Though Austin is famous for its mass gatherings of bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge, the animals still face a host of challenges, from disease and development to human fear and misunderstanding. Information and resources are available from Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation and Austin Bat Refuge, which also cares for bats who are orphaned, injured or otherwise in need.
Find more profiles, tips, and inspiration in The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife, due for release from Princeton Architectural Press in April. Learn more about the Humane Gardening Heroes series, and tell us your story.