The Potter Family celebrates their gold-level certification in Lake Charles.
The Potter’s house is another spot in Lake Charles where the owners are taking a real rough patch that started with Hurricane Laura, and turning it around with new diversified native plantings. This is exactly what this region needs to increase resilience and productivity going forward. As many can attest, our native plants are tough as nails, and the local wildlife craves them.
They began planting for pollinators when the house was finished in 2014, but really ramped it up after their girls attended a butterfly release event in Lake Charles in 2017. That’s where they caught “the bug” and started planting milkweeds and other host plants in earnest. In 2019, their property was certified as a Monarch Waystation, and I can attest to the fact that there are chrysalises all over the place. They have milkweed spread around in multiple beds, so while some are eaten to the stem, there are others that can still support caterpillars. They also began focusing on more native host plants at that time, and have chosen many plants for their value as larval food.
2020 and early 2021 were very destructive times in SWLA, and this is where the current wave of native plantings began. They lost a ton of trees, but have been busy replacing them with new native diversity. Scott is not afraid to plant tiny seedling trees mixed in with larger new specimens, and he knows how special they are years down the road when they reach formidable sizes. The gardens in the back of the property have the feeling of great potential energy like new plantings generally do, and should be amazing within a couple of years. Scott has flagged and marked many seedlings to protect them and track their growth. Their raised beds were destroyed, so new storm and time-proof ones have been built for vegetables and other plants that need drainage. They’ve put a lot of thought into making different sections for different pollinators, light levels, soil moisture, and existing foliage, and are really creating a small paradise tucked away in the middle of the city. The property is bordered by woodlands, and will likely soon include more of them with trails and habitat improvements. These diverse forests definitely add to the wildlife value of the property. With caterpillar and insect diversity comes bird diversity, and they have IDed almost 50 species of birds in their yard.
The Potters are so serious about native plants that the afternoon after receiving a gold level certification, they went out and got a trunkload of native plants that they didn’t have in their gardens! This is the kind of infectious inspiration that comes from the LA Certified Native Habitat Program. We’re really bringing people that have had similar interests together for the first time, and then expanding to people that didn’t even know how much they wanted to restore native plants to the landscape. In the end, we will have a stronger, more resilient, more diverse, and more beautiful state because of it.
From the May 2022 ANPP Newsletter
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