Dr. Brandon and Aurore Ballengée- Gold Louisiana Certified Habitat

Congratulations to Dr. Brandon and Aurore Ballengée for having their nature reserve,

sculpture garden, and STEM education center, aptly named Atelier de la Nature (Nature’s

Workshop) Gold Certified. The original site was acquired in 2017, and additional parcels

have been purchased since, bringing the total area to about 30 acres. The latest addition to

Atelier de la Nature is a crawfish pond. The pond serves not only as a source of crawfish for

the Ballengée family, but also a wetland habitat for studying amphibians, turtles, water

snakes, and wading birds that are abundant year-round. Atelier de la Nature, which is

located between Cecilia and Arnaudville, was formerly a sugarcane field, evident by crop

rows that remain still in some of the wooded areas of the property. The Ballengée family has

worked hard to restore the area by re-establishing Cajun Prairie, restoring woodland, and

creating wetland habitat on their property. Already they have planted over 1500 trees, 2.5

acres of native prairie, and created four different types of wetlands on the property. This

restoration has been accomplished with the help of the Acadiana Native Plant Project,

community members, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and other environmental

organizations. Brandon is currently running an experiment to compare the effect of sheep

grazing on native prairie. Three sites of equal size are included in this experiment. Two sites

were seeded with prairie plants, one is burned annually, the other is heavily grazed by

sheep. A third site serves as an experimental control; it was not planted and is neither

burned nor grazed. Results thus far indicate that heavy sheep grazing has a negative effect

on prairie compared to annual burning without grazing. The control area, which also is not

burned annually, has been overtaken by woody vegetation, mostly Wax Myrtle and

Baccharis.

Atelier de la Nature offers guided nature walks, workshops for nature lovers, as well as art

and science educational programs, all of which are open to the public. The Ballengée family

has hosted many festivals and programs, such as the Halloween Art and Nature Festival,

Prairie Planting Day, Fête de la Nature (Earth Day Festival) as well as art and nature

programs with local schools. These programs are offered “to inspire people to steward the

nature in their own backyards and learn how to, collectively, protect these natural gifts for

future generations, through art”.

Thank you Ballengée Family for Greauxing Native.