Judy Loves Frog Fruit & Herpeto-Flora

(Judy Green has a dream. In her dream garden, the gate opens onto a green pathway, a carpet of frog fruit, and a creeping, native groundcover you can walk on or even mow. Judy knows this sort of stuff because Judy is a herpetologist.

The path slopes downward under a snakebark maple. Its trunk is smooth as baby doll skin and has milky green and wavy white striations—think Lizardman-Barbie legs.  

A curving set of steps and a trickling sound lead down to a small pond. Although there is only a patch of clear water, plants thrive along the edges: creamy, fragrant lizard tail flowers here, and head-high, bright red alligator flags over in the sun. 

In many country gardens, you’d find a plywood cut out of two little boys in overalls, with a fishing pole and a ‘No Fishin! sign. Judy repainted it to read, 'No Giggin’!!! ' It makes sense if you know two things.

1. Hunting frogs for food is called gigging.

2. Judy is a herpetologist. She’s spent her professional life with frogs, lizards, snakes, toads and turtles.

This is Judy’s Herpeto-flora fantasy garden— all the plants’ names honor herps*.

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Judy Greene grew up in a small town in South Carolina. It’s one of those dead-end towns. If you try to leave one way, you’ll end up at a boat ramp and the wide and wild Savannah River. Another way, the empty asphalt road runs smack into a fortified boundary of what locals call ‘the bomb plant’ – a massive, secretive, and totally off-limits federal site with guarded relics of the Cold War. (Link to video of Lab herpitologist catching a snapping turtle in our pond)

As a student, Judy found her way inside to discover a surprise: the University of Georgia Savannah River Ecology Lab. Little country girl Judy met internationally known biologists. 

Now she wants you to garden for herps*.  

Judy Green, herpetologist, says, “My real fantasy is that every person with a yard opens their eyes a bit to appreciate actual reptiles and amphibians who may show up there,” Judy speaks plainly. 

“You need toads in your yard,” Judy says. By toads, she means the brown and gray chubby creatures most of us call frogs.  “Southern toads and spadefoot toads determinedly eat mosquitos and other insect pests; they make lovely noises on rainy nights, and they have fascinating life cycles of which we can easily be a part. Jenks’ video of amplexus may be more intimate than you want, but you can enjoy frogs in lots of ways. For many of us, they are the first memory of amphibians.”

This video is from a little man-made pond at Jenks and Tom’s farm in South Carolina. Just two years after we built the pond, all this casual amplexus and hooking up is going on right out in the yard! Turn up the volume!

Judy says that you can simply put out a temporary water source in your garden, and toads or treefrogs will come and maybe lay eggs.

“It’s an advantage for them in the wild. They can lay eggs that quickly turn into tadpoles, then to toads in seasonally wet depressions like a puddle or a ditch, which don’t hold water long.

In contrast, salamanders and true frogs need more long-term water, like a real pond or stream. But toad eggs and tadpoles in a puddle are not going to be eaten by fish. Also, it allows them to reproduce almost anywhere—they don’t have to be near a permanent pond.

If you have a garden and want to observe the life cycle, here’s how: Get a tiny children’s play pool, fill it with water, and put a rock or something in it. You can use water from your spigot; chlorine evaporates quickly. But some municipalities, including Columbia, SC, use chloramine, so you need to add a product to break it down. Once you see toads, let water from the hose sit overnight in a bucket before topping off.  

You can put a plant in it. You can freshen it up with a hose sometimes. You can even put a mosquito dunk in it to kill mosquito larvae.  If you have toads within a half mile, they’ll find it and lay eggs that turn to tadpoles that turn to toads. “I know they have short legs, but toads cover a lot of ground,” Judy says. 

If you worry that you may not have a toad, go find some and invite them home. Toads adapt to new locations easily.  You do need two; Males have dark chins, dark like a man with a heavy five o’clock shadow. And males are smaller. Females are plump. But honestly, toads travel long distances so this endeavor may be fun but not needed.

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Recently, Judy spent the day at our farm for our Being in Place event with Janisse Ray. In Janisse's book, Ecology of A Cracker Childhood, she laments the divisions of our wild lands and imagines how amphibians are impacted by roads and new subdivisions for homes.  She also recommends a herpetological organization, Orianne, whose mission is to conserve imperiled reptiles and amphibians using science, applied conservation, and education. One of their focus areas is longleaf pine savannas. Their refuge in Telfair County, Georgia, aims to preserve indigo snakes, gopher tortoises, eastern diamond-backed rattlesnakes, and spotted turtles. Become a member here.

Judy and Janisse regularly use the word herpetology. “What is that exactly? How are all the animals you study connected?” I ask. Judy explains, “Taxonomically, these animals are not related, but we lump them together. Herpetology is the study of snakes, lizards, frogs, salamanders, turtles, alligators, spiny-back lizard cousins, and a few other oddballs that look like tiny blind snakes.”  

Judy’s passion means that I could write an entirely different essay about, say, chameleons, skinks, and lizards for the garden. 

But I better end with one final definition. Above, we mentioned amplexus. Amplexus is a beautiful thing. Look at the video, and you’ll see it. The male frog grasps his mate tightly. He never actually enters her. She deposits eggs externally, and he fertilizes them where they land. It must be timed perfectly so this specialized grasping syncs them, ties them, and unifies them to ensure the beautiful floating eggs and tadpoles we all know.  The transformation from egg to tadpole to frog is enthralling, impactful, and alien but connecting. At any age. Help it happen in your garden. And just for fun and further connection, plant some frog fruit and get a little bit of Judy’s herpeto-flora and my fantasy garden. 

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*Herps is jargon referring to any of the lovely critters that herpetologists study.

Please check out one of my cherished ‘instrumental’ albums, Casual Amplexus. Ri Crawford, herpetologist and musician, reordered different frog calls, the associated them with notes on keyboard. He plays the music of her songs, along with piano and a few other instruments. It’s haunting and soothing. Click the photo to purchase his CD on amazon.