Mission man's back yard blooms into botanical garden

The couple rushed to the kitchen window, hurrying to glimpse a visitor hovering just outside.

The wife pointed, and the husband looked. A cell phone-sized humming bird ate from a feeder. This bird had scared away the normal diner at that window, a smaller bird of a different variety.

An ever increasing number of birds have flocked to Paul and Shelley Bryant's backyard in rural Mission. Since Paul, freshly retired, responded to his older sister's dream: Wouldn't it be nice to have a bird sanctuary in your back yard?

Two years, 1,000 feet of gravel trail, and hundreds of plants later, Paul now has a bird sanctuary in his backyard. Dubbed SAP Nature Preserve, it sits on 1.63 acres and features 167 identified native plant species nestled around a walking trail.

"I didn't mean him specifically, but I thought it'd be nice for anybody to have it in their back yard, and he took it personally," said Jaime Ritter, Paul's sister, who lives in Corpus Christi.

"What can I say? He's a weird man."

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Paul, 59, once cared for a herd of goats on his land that stretches beyond their home near the intersection of Bryan Road and 3 Mile Lane. And over the years he had a passing interest in nature, hiking and the outdoors.

But that passing interest bloomed into a full-fledged passion during a birding trip two years ago in Falfurrias. As brother and sister held binoculars to their faces and snapped pictures of native birds, Jamie mentioned casually that it would be nice to not have to travel so far. That started Paul's journey into creating a sanctuary in honor of his sister.

Jamie might call her brother a bit weird, a tad obsessive, totally over the top.

But deep down she feels touched. Her baby brother, three years younger than her, built her a beautiful garden.

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A mound of cacti grows along the burnt sienna gravel trail.

It's squat, shorter than most people, but it takes up the same area as a mid-sized sedan.

Keep walking down the trail, and you'll pass mesquite trees, thorn bushes and several varieties of flowers.

Paul researched the types of vegetation native to the Rio Grande Valley.  Then he grew them in a nursery area and planted them along the trail.

The first year, he worked five hours a day on the project. Now, with all but a few hundred plants in the ground, he invests five hours a week.

He's equipped the area with signage, identifying the many different plants  - labeling  them in English and Spanish.

Benches line the path, some under shade-giving overhangs.

 "It's pretty impressive," said Mike Heap, an instructor at the University of Texas-Pan American and owner of a native plant nursery for more than two decades. "He's got so many different kinds. It's like a private botanical garden."

Paul's private garden sports more varieties of vegetation than some local bird sanctuaries, Heap said.

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Three vacant parking spots line the front of the botanical garden

Next year, though, Paul hopes that the parking lot will stay full. He plans to open his backyard garden to the public, to the hordes of bird watching enthusiast that flock to the Valley each year.

That's one goal of the project. The other is to cultivate native plants in their natural setting.

Rewind three hundred years, and you'll face a scene more similar to Paul's garden than the empty field behind it. It's all native.

As the plants grow, so will the number of birds attracted to them, experts say.

Angie Tagtow works as a managing editor at The Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition. She has also fostered hundreds of native plants at her home in Iowa. She began her project nine years ago.

"It's really been cool to see all the wildlife emerge," Tagtow said during a phone interview. "Every season is a learning season for us, because we never know what to expect."

Paul continues his project and moves toward the day he opens to the public. Like Tagtow, he doesn't know what to expect.

But he knows he'll keep working on it. And he knows the plants will keep growing.

"It was all a labor of joy," Paul said. "I enjoyed every minute of it."

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Zack Quaintance covers features and entertainment for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4447.