"You spent half a million to live in a house that looks like an Olive Garden" - I swear to god I hurt myself laughing at that

It is amazing how little native plants are used in Florida and South Texas. Strange because there are many with high ornamental quality

I’m from the great smoky mountains of southern Appalachia and McMansions are destroying the southern Appalachian mountains at a terrifying rate, being Cherokee my whole family has lived here forever pretty much, a few people lived here but everyone was very poor and everyone had the same as everyone else, then almost overnight the McMansions started popping up, now the mountains are covered in ridiculously big houses, houses are growing faster than trees and it’s crazy because nobody used to want to live in Appalachia they left it to mountain people and Indians but now it’s quickly being densely populated by the rich and affluent city people who all move here and become self taught real estate agents and go to raping this place for every penny they can squeeze out of this area, you should botanize the carnivores bogs or the alpine high elevation habitats or the rich diversity of spring ephemerals here in southern Appalachia because the human tumor is alive and well here and it’s swallowing this once wild and rugged place that I love dearly, keep up the good work man and never be afraid to tell it like you see it

Mc Mansion Hell is an amazing blog, done by an architecture student, who studied the Mc Mansions the way classical architecture would be studied. I found out about it from an article about how Zillow had sent her a "cease and desist" letter. She had to take down her site, but if you do an image search you can still find some gems.

The fact that you hate McMansions is why I love this channel

Suburban sprawl is disgusting and incredibly wasteful. Incredible and frustrating video. Keep em coming

Having a ruler tattooed on your finger might be the most practical and genius tattoo in history. What a time saver working construction and contracting.

As someone with a natural yard, it's sometimes a struggle to keep it from being taken over by invasives. Wish you'd do a video specifically on how to keep, or return, your yard to nature!

I would normally skip any SkillShare ad... but not when they're this entertaining. Watched *both* of them, all the way through.

"Don't it always seem to go, we don't know what we've got 'til it's gone/ they paved paradise and put up a parking lot." Joni Mitchell was right. Edited to add: I love how you speak with the enthusiasm many men have for cars, but about plants. You warm my heart so much, good Sir!

I love Tillandsia also, and when I lived in Florida I had taken a large piece of driftwood and over the years I attached various species to it. My goal was to collect one of each of the native species, some of which are quite hard to find (they are being wiped out by human sprawl and the Mexican Bromeliad Weevil). I promise you, I only ever collected plants from the ground, which is why despite knowing the locations of a couple more species, I never managed to acquire any...because I never managed to find any of that species on the ground! Some of my plants were single specimens and so pollination was tricky, but most were in duplicate or even triplicate and I did manage to get a few to seed, which I tried to disperse in the proper habitats. I only made it to ten species though (FL has 16) when someone stole the whole thing right off my screened-in lanai. I still harbor a ton of resentment over this, even 15 years later. Thank you for the introduction to this one for me.

They don't even have the decency to put sidewalks on the sprawl of green nothingness in front of their houses.

I thank you for your effort to educate the collective. I appreciate your humor. In the times we live in, I find it overwhelming and the humor helps.

I live in the Wabanaki Acadian forest, so each of your videos on the sub-tropics/ tropics are like a tiny, educational vacation for me. Thanks brother. I was shocked at how that ox box had been turned into a concrete sluiceway! So tough for the riparian plant communities!

Hi there Buddy I only just found your footage on KZfaq a couple of weeks ago but your extensive knowledge on such a wide range of plant species and other subjects is astounding and impressive and your sense of humour is marvelous and always good for a laugh. The excitement you express for plants and everything that makes up those plants is literally the way I feel when I look at different plant species and varieties but I'm not as eloquent at expressing there beauty as you are. It's been a pleasure catching up with your previous posts and as a proud Aussie I especially like you're Australian footage but really its all impressive. All the best mate and I wish you all the success in the future with all your endeavours.👍✌️

This video hits home for me because it IS home im a resident of South Texas and man it is so hard to convince people around here that we have a beautiful ecosystem. They're so used to seeing cleared plots of lands they just assume the RGV has no interesting ecology or wildlife and its so sad because we're so beautiful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for covering us and I hope you don't mind I send this to assholes who say we don't have wildlife worth saving.

I’m in East Texas. They cut down over 2000 acres of prime swamp land filled with God knows how many endangered species. You make way for McMansions for all the Californians flooding the damn place. I saved what I could but I know for a fact about 1 acre of rare native orchids Got bulldozed and buried

God everything you’re saying as you are going through that neighborhood resonates with me so much. It’s so heart shattering working in consulting botany sometimes :’(

So true, I love the flora in my state of Texas, but I see so much old growth being bulldozed over at an incredible rate 😡 so much respect for our trees and plants here thriving despite the harsh conditions of our hot dry climate.

Your mate Al is worth a million in prizes! Love yer work…

A builder looks at a lot & sees a future home. I see a current home that's superior to any slapped up crap box that could be put there. How TF people are still building is a mystery. Love you Joey & Al, you make me smile, not an easy task. Gfyselves! Edit: found a Lilium michauxii blooming in the ditch on my dirt road, amazing it's persisted.

Lived off the grid in a small one bedroom cabin me and my wife built ourselves--One of the happiest and most productive times of my life. People don't realize how little they really need.

Another banging video, Joey. Fking hilarious intro/skill share ad by Al. Stunning spiraled trunk on that Taxodium! May they all outlive the McMansion Olive Garden breadstick homes. Cheers!

Thank you for raising awareness about all the habitat destruction that’s happening in this great state. It breaks my heart seeing so many ecologically important areas being destroyed.

Best commercials in the game, not to mention the plant content is killer!

My nieces cousin is on the prozack and it really helped her be nice to her cat after it developed restless leg syndrome, so I really don’t appreciate you insulting people on the prozacks.

I'm an ISA Certified Arborist with TRAQ and I love your videos. I just found your channel the other day when I stumbled across your unapproved planting video. You're such an entertaining mind to listen to, I really appreciate your frustration over societies cultural norms towards trees and nature in general! Definitely one of my favorite channels currently!

And you knoq they're all just 2x4 vaguely stacked on top of one another and held together by spray-in insulation, and then covered with PU/PIR foam insulation for good measure. Also what with macmansions always looking like a dozen garden huts stuck together and covered in roughcast? Is that because they're all based on modular designs that owners can mix and match to suit their (awful) tastes? There are just so many different walls and roofing surfaces, why??

I love that old tree !! And the way that you describe the raping of our land by the developers. Keep up the good work documenting these plants and trees

Al is a absolute treasure, his ability to riff to camera is amazing.

I would love to become rich enough to buy lots of homes like this and rip 70% out and reforest the land. Also all 100% of homes would be destroyed but I will go up not out so affordable apartments with lots of native trees and lots of green space shade you no mother nature.

The ad made me laugh my ass off

Glad to have you in Texas, keep these videos coming! I'd love to see you head to the eastern edge of Edwards Plateau sometime, near the Balconnes Escarpment. Mish-mash of climate between arid west and more humid east makes for a unique location, ranging from dry limestone flats to rolling hill country, with plenty of unique and endemic species like _Asclepias texana_ , _Buddleja racemosa_ , and _Passiflora affinis_ . There are also scattered populations of the (possibly) relictual species _Cotinus obovatus_ , a tree that was almost wiped out during the Civil War because of its valued yellow dye... would be a banger species to go over. _Edited b/c idk how youtube italics work lol_

I do hate my local culture, I hate when they tare down nature in my area. they destroyed a whole ecosystem surrounding a long stretch of resaca. I grew up here, I saw trees I'd grown up with since 4th grade cut and that hurt. felt like treebeard. love you came by.

Best add plugs on KZfaq. Is there an award for this, because y'all win.

Mcmansions and their owners should always be bullied tbh. Love your videos

Best ad reads in the business

In Minnesota, I've seen so many mcmansions and town houses taking up more and more land, destroying so many biomes. they are a plague, it's terrifying to behold, just hoping there's enough left to avoid the loss or destruction of entire ecosystems

Joey, after listening to your countless rants against driving this country off of a fuckin cliff, I found myself wandering through a neighborhood, and was appalled at the cookie-cutter nature of it. Every fuckin house was exactly the same, EVEN DOWN TO THE “LANDSCAPING” (which, actually could be better described as a Home Depot truck flipping over on I-5 and scattering that stupid shit all over). At 20, I would have been dying to live there, not knowing I would be condemning myself to a life of McCormick taco seasoning, Nike Air Monarchs, an overall beige existence, and a lifetime of indentured servitude, because I paid way too much and got a variable rate mortgage. At 30, I know it’s cool to be a nerd and learn, a house is only a place that you sleep and take shits in, and that the world is really fuckin big and our lives are really short, so you’d better get out there and experience it before you’re 45. Healthy people drop dead as fuck every day at 45 so, if you just plan on being dead by then, you’ll have no regrets when you actually die (hopefully at a much later age). Always keep the “social and political commentary” (rants). They are necessary for the advancement of our culture through whatever the fuck this is right now. I mean that wholeheartedly. The things you say, and the way you say it appeal to blue-collar people (me) and academics (also me). You have a truly unique, amazing fucking gift in that, you serve as a bridge between “the two sides”. A blue-collar guy can, and will, listen because Tony says simpleton shit and cusses a lot. Academics will listen because you truly know what the fuck you’re talking about. Those two aspects together are how we come to recognize our similarities, and stop with the constant division. You’re in a truly unique position to bring people together by doing exactly what you’ve been doing. You’re really doing some good shit Joe. Much love to you and the family. Btw, the CPBBD and Kill Your Lawn stickers get laughs and confused stares everywhere I go. My plant reproductive bio professor now tells people to kill their lawns. GFY Bye

That cypress at the end was beautiful. You describe the people living their delusions very well.

"You spent half a million bucks to live in a home that looks like an Olive Garden." Holy shit was that a righteous burn.

Your videos make me feel more sane in this crazy world. Thank you!

Your home looks like an Olive Garden…BOOM!!! TONY!!!

You can do a 5/6 video like this on Florida! With the swamp flowers and such disappearing one housing development at a time

Fascinating how those Mimosa inflorescences also turn into the classic bean pod fruits, very similar to many species that have the typical Faboid flowers...

As someone currently on antidepressants I would like you to know that your content makes life a little less depressing! Please keep being so snarky and I genuinely hope that your actual accent!

Those cypresses really get me going.

Holy shit, dude. I just found your channel and I love everything about it. This get’s me thinking about a guerrilla redo of my dog-park here in Baltimore. Fuck the grass, let’s get some wood mulch and some American Chestnuts and gum trees.

I dunno if I would even recognize right away that the tillandsae weren't just some twisted detritus of the tree. Hearing of tillandsae groeing down the face of a cliff is mind blowing. If I was as good at storage and recall as I used to be, I'd put these montezuma and tillandsia ecologies right up there with arguably my top favorite, the banyan.

Thank You for doing this. I learn so much because of you and like you say see the bigger picture of this whole world we are in. I think there were maybe just a few teachers in my schooltime that made me motivate to learn stuff like you do. Thank You for showing me that learning is awesome.

I've never actually like a video before, especially for an ad, but that was the greatest intro ever. I love Astrovans

Love the Tillandsias. So cool to see so many flowering and going to seed.

I'll never understand these people's obsession with living in huge interior spaces. Just more to clean and repair. Also the front lawns they'll never use but have to mow and water. What a time and resource suck. A whole lot of pointless activity to maintain the image of being "successful" I guess. Subdivisions of middle managers all LARPing as 19th century aristocrats. What a goofy lifestyle.

the drone shots in this were awesome, please show us more with the drone, love getting into the canopy of the trees like that

"Greeting card quality art" 🤣

Segue into Ad was well done! Good enough to convince me to endure the ad. That’s saying something. Thanks for the great content.

Just found your channel, incredible content, love your work.

Some of the best videos on the site, every time. Keep 'em coming, brother

Thank you for your documentation of such cool trees. They should be treasured! Damn the McMansions.

Watch out for the HOA snipers, Tony.

Thank you Al and Tony for this.

South Texas has some of the best birds and plants around. Rio Grande valley Nafta ripped its heart out.

I visited the tree in Oaxaca many years ago! Very big tree indeed!

I think you dunked on the McMansions exactly the right amount. Thanks for all the botany porn, and the potty-humor commentary! Also that was the funniest SkillShare in-video ad I've ever seen, congrats...

I'm applauding - I just started watching the channel again and wow it's popping! Wildest youtube surprise video at me. Thanks!

Thanks for the astro needed some parts 👍🏼 Vinnie is a great guy

been a little busy so have missed some. thanks man, keep on truckin with the edu macation of the masses

We got an Air plant in the garden, put it on an old tree stump and it's growing fine. Its an average condition area of New Zealand's north Island. Might reposition up in a tree. Thanks for the knowledge.

I am in wonder at the way i share the hate of all that suburbia represents, to just suburbia but even big cities on the edge of wilderness that continue to ignore the worth of what they tear out, while i have not been able to have humor about it. I kind of get an anxious depression. I go out in the outside, and each time I do I see more destruction. It is literally every day, here. I like these bits you do. I think it weird that you live in Texas.

sad stuff thanks for documenting and sharing these beauts

Depressingly uplifting.

I’m moving back from the PNW after seasoning on Whidbey Island for 4 years. McAllen, TX I come home! I’ve been watching your show since before you started the Texas modules. It gave me such pride as it was something I glanced over. The Texas brush and heat … I’ll be making attempts to regrow some forest on my acreage! You keep on teaching boss, hopefully I can help keep El Valle alive!

Love ur vjfe bro.. Great nkerp it up a good work 😊😊😊😁👍👍

really enjoyed the drone footage of the tillandsia in the cypress, great video as always

I love tillandsias, I have a dozen of them, but never had the opportunity to see them in their habitat. Thanks for sharing.

McMansion Cultural Death... No adobe/stucco clay tile roof haciendas with tile cement floors vents in the roofs natural ventilation... No solar driven air conditioning or high efficiency air conditioning.

great episode Tony thanks and featuring 2 of my favorite plants Taxodium mucronatum and Tillandsia makes a good day. one of the things I like to think about when looking at all the development is what it will look like 50 years after the inevitable collapse all civilizations go through periodically thinking about the plants and animals that will survive without the constant care get now

Wow. Stunning stuff.

Man I love these videos. I'd like to see you come up to the riparian woodlands of the northern Rio Grande, what's left of it anyways. Everything is getting eaten up by Eleagnus and Tamarix, but there are a few spots without, and they are achingly beautiful. It sucks seeing it everywhere, because the more the invasives pile up, the hotter it burns. I'd like to be able to get rid of some if I could. Thanks again for your work!

Your commentary while driving thru my nightmares earned you a new sub... I dont feel as lonely with my views anymore, thank you.

Thank you for sharing.

Just got a Texas ebony tree, should grow well here in central FloryDuh.

Said this elsewhere but Tillandsias amaze me. Here in Australia I had pictured them as restricted to cloud rainforests in South America

Loved your mate, best skill share advert ever afflicted on me 🤣🤣🤣

Great Content Thank You

Those mimosas are replacing the crab grass (augustine) they planted at our house. Augustine is a blight across Texas as lawn turf, but a lawn full of mowable little pink balls is cute as hell.

Some of my favorite bonsai at Huntington Garden’s collection are Montezuma Cypress. Those bitches are amazing.

I am just discovering your channel, you are amazing and I want to learn from you forever

Because of your wonderful wit, and extensive botanical knowledge, it would be a crime not to subscribe to your channel. Subscribed!

Holy shit - new to the channel and damn is this the best ad read I've ever heard! The ending had me surprised and dying.

I will watch all 4 takes. Keep making these ads, I will keep watching them. Thanks!

Lmao! That is the very first time I did not fast forward through sponsor information! Nice job guys!

Just went out on I-10 past the area you described off the highway, definitely going back further west to look for Quercus tardifolia. Anything else that way you'd recommend?

Cool stuff, Very Knowledgeable narrator!

Interesting information on the nitrogen fixing nodules!

I live in a desert and my neighbors constantly post on nextdoor about their lawns. I had to quit looking at it I was getting so irritated.

Very informative and entertaining, but heartbreaking.

12:22 i mean, they might be huge fans of the olive garden?

For no reason at all, I'm now tempted to release hordes of termites near mcmansion suburbs.

So unbelievably surreal seeing thriving native flora right next to those fancy houses. We have plenty of urban sprawl in the Northeast, but what it replaces is usually just land that was already disturbed repeatedly and now hosts the "typical" native and non-native weedy plants. We have some more "exotic" flora if you go certain places, but even there it is far from untouched. The western parts of this country benefit from huge expanses with relatively little historic disturbance compared to the east coast.