Resource Intelligence · Water, Land & Culture — a working library on what San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country provide. https://www.noon.bio/source/ 2026-06-02T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporationhttps://www.noon.bio/design@noon.bio © 2026 Noon Systems Corporation · CC BY 4.0 (attribution required) https://www.noon.bio/source/reading-the-land.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-06-02T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Slope, drainage, soil, sun, and existing canopy. The five readings Noon does on every property before any design decision — and what each one tells us about what will hold up in San Antonio and the Hill Country.

https://www.noon.bio/source/acequia-water-as-culture.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

The San Antonio acequia system: 300 years of gravity-fed irrigation, communal governance, and indigenous water knowledge that turned the upper San Antonio River into one of the most productive agricultural systems in North America. What it was, how it worked, and what it still teaches.

https://www.noon.bio/source/aphids-scale-mealybugs-organic.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Howard Garrett's organic protocol for sucking insects — water blast, garlic-pepper tea, neem oil, and beneficial release. Exact recipes. Why neonicotinoids are a disaster for pollinators and do not solve the underlying problem.

https://www.noon.bio/source/beneficial-insects-encourage-them.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

A property that hosts predators needs less management. The Texas beneficial insects that matter — ladybugs, lacewings, parasitic wasps, ground beetles, hover flies, native bees, spiders — and the plants and habitat features that bring them.

https://www.noon.bio/source/bioswales-explained.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

What a bioswale actually is, how it beats a French drain on a Hill Country lot, and how Noon builds them in San Antonio — cross-section, native planting palette, and what it costs to hold storm runoff on your own property.

https://www.noon.bio/source/built-from-the-ground-up.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/caliche-and-how-to-plant-in-it.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Caliche is calcium carbonate hardpan, not soil. It's why so many Hill Country plantings die in their second summer. How Noon breaks it, amends it, and chooses plants that actually root in alkaline ground.

https://www.noon.bio/source/compost-feeds-the-soil.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/compost-from-scratch-texas.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Finished compost is worth more to a Hill Country landscape than any synthetic fertilizer. How Noon builds the three-pile system on Texas properties — browns to greens, moisture, turning, what never goes in.

https://www.noon.bio/source/diversity-creates-resilience.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/drip-vs-sprinkler-what-to-use-where.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Irrigation system selection for Hill Country properties. Why spray loses 30%+ to summer evaporation, why drip drives deeper roots, when rotor heads make sense, and the watering windows that actually keep plants alive in central Texas.

https://www.noon.bio/source/drought-tolerant-perennials-by-exposure.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Right plant, right slot. A perennial palette for San Antonio organized by sun exposure — full sun south/west, full sun north/east, dappled shade, and deep shade — with bloom times, pollinator value, and cut-back timing.

https://www.noon.bio/source/edible-landscape-hill-country.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Integrating food into a Hill Country landscape that still looks like a landscape. Persimmon, pomegranate, fig, prickly pear, perennial herbs, and the two-season vegetable calendar for San Antonio.

https://www.noon.bio/source/every-property-is-a-watershed.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/fire-ants-without-poison.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Howard Garrett's organic fire ant protocol — orange oil, molasses, and compost tea drench, plus beneficial nematodes and predator habitat. Why synthetic ant killer fails long-term and what to use instead.

https://www.noon.bio/source/local-resources-create-local-culture.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/mesquite-food-fuel-medicine-music.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Honey mesquite is the most useful single tree in South Texas. Pods to flour, wood to charcoal and instruments, sap to medicine. The tree most contractors clear was, for thousands of years, a food crop.

https://www.noon.bio/source/mission-garden-palette.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Pomegranate, fig, olive, peach, grape, corn, beans, squash, prickly pear. The plant palette that fed San Antonio's missions from 1731 onward — and what a Hill Country property owner can plant from that same palette today.

https://www.noon.bio/source/mulch-choices-hill-country.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Native hardwood, cedar, leaf mulch, straw, rock, decomposed granite. What works in San Antonio and the Hill Country, what doesn't, and the honest case against cedar mulch in planting beds.

https://www.noon.bio/source/native-palette-san-antonio.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

The native palette Noon plants in San Antonio and the Hill Country, organized by layer. Anchor trees, small flowering trees, shrubs, perennials, and groundcovers — with what each one does and what we don't plant and why.

https://www.noon.bio/source/rainwater-harvesting-residential.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Residential roof catchment in San Antonio. The real math (623 gallons per inch of rain per 1,000 sqft of roof), cistern sizing for a half-acre Hill Country lot, what the system costs, and when it actually pays for itself.

https://www.noon.bio/source/shade-is-infrastructure.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/waste-is-a-resource-in-the-wrong-place.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/water-is-a-traveler.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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.

https://www.noon.bio/source/what-is-the-noon-source.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

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

https://www.noon.bio/source/yucca-one-plant-ten-uses.html 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z 2026-05-31T00:00:00Z Noon Systems Corporation

Soap, fiber, food, medicine, fire, ceremony, and ornamental anchor — all from a single genus already growing in the Hill Country. A field guide to yucca as resource, not decoration.