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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
Read →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.
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