TEXAS \u2014 Erin and Brian Wofford own and operate the Mosty Brothers Nursery. Started by Erin\u2019s great- great-grandfather in 1897, it\u2019s the oldest in the state.<\/p>\n
The 80-acre nursery sits in Center Point along the Guadalupe River, which made the Wofford\u2019s decision to grow trees to replace those lost in last year\u2019s floods an easy one.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be a part of this is really special to us because we live in the area,\u201d Erin Wofford said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had cypress trees that you couldn\u2019t get your arms around them, and there isn\u2019t anything there now,\u201d Bryan Wofford added. \u201cWe love being a part of it. I mean, it\u2019s going to take a long time, and you have to start somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
That somewhere was at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, which created the Texas Recovery for Ecological and Environmental Stability Initiative (TREES). The initiative\u2019s five years, $5 million project aims to restore 50,000 native trees along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County following 2025 flood damage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have at least 12 nurseries across the region that are growing these for us,\u201d said Andrew Labay,\u00a0San Antonio Botanical Garden\u2019s chief mission officer.<\/p>\n
The nurseries\u00a0are growing cypress, sycamore, black walnut, and more varieties of trees from seeds. All the trees are native to the Texas Hill Country, which is an important factor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just pulling trees off the nursery market and going into these areas. It\u2019s really keeping the genetics local,\u201d Labay said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just bring in a tree from East Texas or Louisiana like a bald cypress. Keeping the genetics local is truly the best way to have success on a project like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re shaking seed out, we were doing everything, we had tarps on the ground just collecting, and we collected hundreds of thousands of seeds,\u201d said Doug Elkins,\u00a0San Antonio Botanical Garden\u2019s conservation manager.<\/p>\n
Bryan Wofford said the team is borrowing a method from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department when it comes to protecting their tiny trees from grazing animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to cover them with cedar, debris, and basically give them a protective barrier for them to grow up through,\u201d Bryan Wofford said. \u201cThat way, if a flood comes through, they can just put it back. They\u2019ve had a lot of success with that before.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that commitment to the community that hasn\u2019t gone unnoticed by locals, who realize there are people who lost a lot more than trees but truly appreciate the effort to restore a sense of normalcy.<\/p>\n
But it will take time before these tiny trees grow as big as the ones lost last July.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe for our great-grandkids, our great- great-grandkids. Maybe for them,\u201d Erin Wofford said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Erin and Brian Wofford own and operate the Mosty Brothers Nursery. Started by Erin\u2019s great- great-grandfather…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":778769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7363,359,318920,7366,1596,31126,50,7202,7203,358,33124,41035,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":{"0":"post-778768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-app-community","10":"tag-austin","11":"tag-bryan-boes","12":"tag-community-news","13":"tag-dallas","14":"tag-el-paso","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-san-antonio","17":"tag-sanantonio","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-texas-floods","20":"tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","21":"tag-tx","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-vod"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116531292362477176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}