The Source · Articles
§ I.a Articles 9 entries

Articles.

Short editorial essays on resource culture, ecology, and place.
i.

What the Noon Source Is For — A Working Library, Not a Blog

Why Noon publishes — the difference between writing about ecology and writing from a job site, and what a Public Benefit landscape practice is for.

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ii.

Built From the Ground Up — The Subsurface Column Under a Hill Country Property

Topsoil, clay, caliche, karst limestone. The four layers under every Hill Country parcel — and why landscape, foundations, food, and architecture all start with reading them right.

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iii.

Shade Is Infrastructure

A mature live oak moves 40,000 gallons a year and drops ground temperature 10–15°F. Canopy is not decoration. It is built mass — the original passive cooling system of the Hill Country.

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iv.

Diversity Creates Resilience

A turf lawn = 1 species. A native Hill Country meadow = 30 to 80. An Edwards Plateau remnant prairie = 200+ per hectare. Species count is a property metric. The number matters.

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v.

Waste Is a Resource in the Wrong Place

The two to four cubic yards of leaves, clippings, scraps, manure, and prunings a typical Hill Country half-acre produces every year — and what closing the loop looks like in San Antonio.

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vi.

Water Is a Traveler

The roughly 30 inches of rain that lands on Bexar County each year, tracked from cloud to leaf to aquifer. Hydrology, economics, craft, food, architecture, and the acequia lineage of San Antonio water.

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vii.

Compost Feeds the Soil

A physical guide to compost — what it is, what it does to caliche-derived Texas soil, what it costs, and why feeding the soil out-performs feeding the plant. San Antonio and the Hill Country.

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viii.

Local Resources Create Local Culture — Edwards Limestone and the Hill Country Vernacular

The Cretaceous limestone that built the Alamo, the missions, the River Walk, every Hill Country fence and Sunday house. One stone, one ecoregion, one continuous culture — and why local identity only holds when the materials are local too.

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ix.

Every Property Is a Watershed

A 2,500 sq ft roof in Bexar County catches 46,000 gallons a year. A half-acre lot intercepts 410,000. The question is not whether your property is a watershed. The question is whether it is stewarded or wasted.

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