Lori Marinovich - Gold Louisiana Certified Habitat - Sulphur

ANPP congratulates Lori Marinovich for a GOLD certified habitat in Sulphur.

Lori’s suburban home in Sulphur is a fine example of what it means to integrate native habitat into neighborhood gardens and reap the benefits of it. Lori, who completed the SWLA Master Naturalist program in 2018, and is the current Vice President of the chapter, began transforming her property into native habitat around 2020. She took advantage of free tree giveaways following hurricane Laura and stock from local native growers to supply plants to enhance her property. The front yard features mixed native plantings around trees such as redbuds, oaks, and magnolias. Turning the corner onto her street, the row of sunflowers and Texas coneflowers grabs the eye, and closer inspection reveals blanket flowers, salvia, bonesets, rattlesnake master, star hibiscus, wild lettuce, irises, and more. Mulch that she makes from leaf debris gathered from family land in Arcadia introduces volunteer native plants into her plantings. The backyard is also being transformed into a habitat including spiderwort, creeping cucumber, Turk’s cap, passion vine, tickseed, echinacea, and others more integrated into a vegetable garden. She says that she does very little pest control on her veggies since planting native, likely a sign of a healthy balance of predators and other food sources for insects that would otherwise be considered pests. The grassy part of her lawn also features Carolina pony’s foot and Virginia buttonweed, perfectly acceptable additions to a lawn to break up the monotony and make it more beneficial than a monoculture of turf grass.

We had native bees buzzing the coneflowers, doves hanging out right over our heads, and a wild rabbit bumped into my foot as it ran by while we were looking at plants. It's proof that these islands of native habitat in a modern neighborhood are important for the fauna we share the land with.

Thanks for greauxing native, Lori!