May 04, 2025
Come hear Joey Santore at his June 19th presentation for Garden Spark in Austin!
Joey is the irreverent, botanizing YouTube star with a deep-dish Chicago accent at Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t, whose mission is to “kill lawns, talk sh*t & explore Earth’s Floristic Diversity.” Expect plenty of all of that at Joey’s talk!
Only a handful of seats remain as of this writing, so don’t delay. Details below.
Kill Your Lawn, Grow an Ecosystem
Joey Santore wants you to kill your lawn. Whether you do it all at once or bit by bit, the purpose of lawn-killing is not just to re-create native plant habitat but also to create space for people to exist within it, allowing them to enjoy it. Native plants and the life that benefits from them is excellent medicine, an antidote to the frustrations and anxiety of the modern world that humans have created. The front yard becomes both a place to mellow out as well as an ecology lab to study and observe the interactions between plants, birds, and insects that have inhabited a region for hundreds of thousands of years. His talk covers species lists, mulch, maintenance such as weeding and pruning, planting density, and more.
Speaker Bio
Joey Santore is a botanist, illustrator, lawn-killer, plant propagator, and conservationist who has traveled the world studying plant ecology and evolution on 5 continents and in 11 countries. He educates the public via his YouTube channel Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t and was the host of the TV show Kill Your Lawn.
When/Where: June 19, 8 to 9 pm
Joey will speak on Thursday, June 19th at 8 pm. The approximately 1-hour talk with Q&A will be held at Leaf Landscape Supply’s North Austin location on Pond Springs Road. The venue is indoors but open-air.
Tickets
Get your ticket at this link. Ticket price is $35.50, plus a small fee that goes to the ticket-processing website. Tickets must be purchased in advance.
Refund Policy
Tickets are nonrefundable. Your purchase helps cover a fair speaking fee for our presenters and other expenses, and collectively we’re able to bring talented design and ecology thinkers to speak to us!
Thank You to Our Sponsor!
The 2025 spring season of Garden Spark is sponsored by Leaf Landscape Supply, which brings the visions of Central Texas gardeners to life through superior quality, an excellent selection, and individualized customer service. Check out their website and online store for pricing and availability.
Subscribe to Garden Spark
GARDEN SPARK is a speaker series on garden design and ecology held in-person in Austin. To be notified about future Garden Spark talks, join my email list. Simply send me an email with “Subscribe” in the subject line.
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Digging Deeper
My new book, Gardens of Texas: Visions of Resilience from the Lone Star State, is available for pre-order at Amazon and other online book sellers. It’ll be released on October 14th, and while that’s several months away, pre-orders are tremendously helpful in getting my book noticed by readers and reviewers. Please consider pre-ordering if you’d like to read it this fall; more info here. Thank you for your support!
Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. Read all about the Season 8 lineup here!
All material © 2025 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
