Today is my Birthday

On this day 51 years ago in the evening I was born in Toronto in the middle of the city. World War II was fresh on everybody's minds and reform was fervor. Humanity was determined not to repeat the same mistake. I would eventually be absorbed into the spirit and participate at an early age in the civil rights movement and later the peace movement.

The environmental movement was subservient to the to both the civil rights movement and the peace movement. In the 21 st century the environmental movement eclipses both movements and often includes them. My interests in Botany and Chemistry were stimulated by the assault over population was having on nature. As world population explodes fresh water supplies no longer seem infinite as the used to.

When I started what would become Paul Cohen's Earth Friendly Plant Care it was a spur of the moment. The grower at Grandiflora Nursery (then San Felasco Nursery) asked my what my business name was. I was previously using Amaryllis Landscaping but thought Earth Friendly Plant Care was more appropriate. Thus Earth Friendly Plant Care was born in order to buy a handful of landscape plants. Soon afterwards the motto "Building a better ecosystem one yard at a time" was invented.

Today a closet full of equipment, a yard full of natives, and eight acres of Florida sand hill for seed stock are incorporated into the business. Three cold shelters keep the plants warm in the winter when the temperatures dip below freezing, as it is apt to do a few times in the North Central Florida in December, January and February. A few strategies are implemented to maintain native plants from a wide range of ecosystems.