Alexandra Kennon
Ashlee Brackeen in the yard of a client in New Orleans' Gentilly neighborhood.
For my next new year’s resolution, I’m vowing to treat all my loved ones like dirt. Or at least how the women of Swampfly Landscaping treat dirt. They embrace and enrich dirt. They fill a yard with plants that want to be there, and restore nitrogen, oxygen, and bacteria to the depleted earth. “You’re typically boosting the soil when you use native plants,” said co-owner Ashlee Brackeen. “Especially in Louisiana, we need the bacteria and oxygen in the soil to be at its healthiest state because it needs to absorb the water.”
Brackeen and fellow Swampflies Emily Pontiff and Caitlin Robbins understand that some clients fear a wild look in their yard (or a rat-a-tat-tat from the Homeowners Association). This is where the thoughtful designers come in, hand-drawing their visions for your little oasis—incorporating two, maybe three different plants. “Through our designs, we can give people a good idea of how it can still look clean and formal if you implement these plants,” said Pontiff. “And also give you a little zest that maybe you needed.”
Lucie Monk Carter
Oenothera lindheimeri, or "Butterfly Gaura," also known as "beeblossom" and purple coneflower in a Baton Rouge garden.
Wordsworth had his host of daffodils, and you can have a heck-of-a-lot-of echinacea. Planting a few species in abundance, or massing, creates a more sustainable garden over time. “The number one thing people ask for, I would say, is low maintenance,” said Brackeen. “If you do native plants and you do massing, you will inherently have a low maintenance property. They seed themselves. When this singular species takes over a 5x5 area, it’s going to look really good—even in its dormancy phase—because it has a uniformity to it. With the reseeding, it makes them take up a lot of space, so eventually you don’t have to remulch. They shade out weeds.”
“Through our designs, we can give people a good idea of how it can still look clean and formal if you implement these plants,” said Pontiff. “And also give you a little zest that maybe you needed.”
But there are clients who give Swampfly more creative freedom, too. “REPLACE MY LAWN” blared one email inquiry. The client had a corner lot in New Orleans and mowed for hours each week. She worked from home and had recently moved her desk to have a view of her front yard. “And she was tired of what she had. She wanted something more,” said Pontiff.
Though native plants weren’t a specific request when she hired Swampfly, the client loved the way a passion vine they implemented fed a Gulf fritillary caterpillar. In the months that followed, “she became our biggest believer,” said Pontiff. The front corner lot is now a certified native plant habitat, complete with a bat house. She’s even overheard neighbors bring their own landscapers down the street to point out plants they’d like in their yards.
Alexandra Kennon
Swampfly often works with fellow nature lovers to increase the chances of encounters with favorite creatures. One woman in Lacombe hated to hear that her neighbors were killing harmless snakes that slithered onto their property. Swampfly built her a snake pit from the invasive tallow trees they’d felled in her yard. Now there’s an Eden in Lacombe: snakes welcome.
As the Swampflies have discovered, it isn’t all that difficult to advocate for a beautiful, beneficial flower. “We had someone a while back who was getting a home built and had a very traditional Louisiana landscape designed,” said Brackeen. “We put together a palate alternative for every single species proposed by the architect. We gave a native alternative that would have the same appearance, the same bloom time, and color.”
“And it would be much more beneficial and low maintenance,” Robbins added. “Much more suited to be down here.”
[Read about Helen Peebles' advocacy for "going native" in your yard in Ruth Laney's story here.]
Native plants have become no-brainers for many landscapers and their clients. Rick Webb owns the wholesale nursery Louisiana Growers, which supplies horticultural professionals like the folks at Swampfly. “Whenever people talk to me now, I can’t help but sound like this curmudgeon,” laughed Webb. “I’ve been in the native plant world for a long time—almost preaching to talk people into using native plants.” These days they’re a key component in stormwater management projects, and Webb sees a renewed “awareness that we should do something to try to repair the damage that we’ve done to the environment.”
One woman in Lacombe hated to hear that her neighbors were killing harmless snakes that slithered onto their property. Swampfly built her a snake pit from the invasive tallow trees they’d felled in her yard. Now there’s an Eden in Lacombe: snakes welcome.
Swampfly eventually hopes to educate at a larger scale than one yard and a few neighbors at a time. The group’s first official commercial project was designing the community garden for Wonderground, an under-construction cooperative arts venue in Old South Baton Rouge. They’re remediating the soil currently—“It’s by the train tracks and was a dumping ground for tires,” said Brackeen—but the garden will ultimately complement owner Cindy Wonderful’s vision for a space where “anyone can be involved or perform here” by hosting specialty classes with friends (beekeeping, citrus tree pruning, etc.) and running a community pantry where a naïf on native plants can pick up good soil and alluring seeds.
Lucie Monk Carter
Coreopsis tinctoria, or "Tickseed".
I wandered through a couple of Swampfly clients’ yards trying to hold onto all the plant names Robbins threw at me: phlox and iris, sea oats and lyreleaf sage. Earlier I’d asked the group to name their favorites, because why labor over a Google image search and scrape up synonyms for pink when I can have someone who loves a flower describe it to me?
Pontiff raved about the rudbeckia maxima. “It’s a large coneflower that has a blue-silver tinge to the leaf. They grow very tall. They have a tall cone and a droopier petal. I think they’re striking. They do really well in the clay soil. They’re able to break it up and amend the soil, making it easier to absorb water. They get established pretty quickly and they are booming right now.”
“That’s a star. It’s a showstopper,” Brackeen agreed.
“It’s striking to behold,” said Robbins.
“You cannot deny the beauty of a native plant when you’re looking at the rudbeckia maxima,” said Brackeen.
Lucie Monk Carter
I asked Webb if he had a favorite native plant, and he said that’s the wrong question. “Don’t give me that one native plant. Diversity is important. Lots of things are essential. We’re creating ecosystems.”
The women of Swampfly agree: there are no favorites when it comes to nurturing the environment. Some plans, like many oak species in North America, offer immense ecological value. “Others have the unique ability to capture the imaginations of people previously unfamiliar with native plants,” said Brackeen. “Oftentimes we find that it’s the really show-stopping, unique, visually striking plants … that spark people’s imaginations, that excite them, and that help instill their trust in us to bring some magic into their spaces.”
And it’s true. But it’s not just that surface beauty that Swampfly’s clientele craves—it’s the company, too.
Alexandra Kennon
Ashlee Brackeen working in the yard of a client in Gentilly.
“A lot of people get into that with milkweed,” said Brackeen. “Feeding the caterpillars and then watching the monarch come back. There are so many other critters to support.”
“You see them start to pop up,” said Pontiff, “then you see the birds that want to eat these insects. You get into having this life around you.
“You watch everything become healthier,” said Robbins, “because you invested in it.”
