Merch Fundraiser: Thornscrub Sanctuary & Peyote Reserve

+ NEW T-SHIRTS and updates from Geoponika and NHT

Jun 26, 2025

Hi friends,

When the world is feeling even more insane then usual we find it helpful to remind ourselves what local change can look like — that’s why we are so excited to be working with Joey Santore on his badass conservation nonprofit, the Thornscrub Sanctuary in South Texas. Scroll down to check out clothing we designed, which all goes to support his efforts, plus other new merch etc.

Wormly,

CS Studio & Nonhuman Teachers

QUICK UPDATES & ANNOUNCEMENTS

1.) New clothes just dropped! Get your great aunt the t-shirt she never knew she wanted for Christmas.

2.) A little project with Pure Beauty is finally out: follow the smoke signals here

3.) Carlos sat down with Architectural Digest to answer readers questions about landscape design…

THORNSCRUB SANCTUARY & PEYOTE RESERVE

If you aren’t familiar with Joey Santore a.k.a. Crime Pays Botany Doesn’t, please do yourself a favor and check out his Youtube and Instagram. He is Chicagoland and frankly Americ’s premier DIY-ecologist, a charismatic storyteller of the American nightmare in the great tradition of Hemingway and Thompson. Case in point… Chonkosourus…

Santore also started Thornscrub Sanctuary is a 501c3 Non-profit based out of South Texas that’s dedicated to conservation, education and research around the rare habitat type known as Tamaulipan Thornscrub, an ecosystem which is found only in the South Texas-Northern Mexico Borderlands and harbors a number of rare plants - especially cacti - and animals species. We designed some shirts and hats to help support what Joey and his merry band are doing.

Thornscrub Sanctuary owns a 150 acre stretch of Thornscrub Habitat that harbors populations of rare plants such as Lophophora williamsii (Peyote), Mammilaria sphaerica (Pale Mammilaria), Nahuatlea hypoleuca (Chumonque), Echinocereus poselgeri (Pencil Cactus) and rare animals such as the Reticulated Collared Lizard (Crotaphytus reticulatus).

The mission is to protect and conserve these species as well as study them. Numerous threats to the cactus species such as Lophophora williamsii and Mammilaria sphaerica exist in the region. Some of the greatest threats to these species which are causing drastic declines in their populations are land clearance/habitat destruction, poaching, and excavation and uprooting by feral pigs.

The plan is to host researchers, visiting scientists, educators and Native American groups (for whom Peyote and Peyote habitat is sacred). The money raised will go towards infrastructure to provide temporary housing for visiting researchers, as well as fencing to protect our conservation property from feral hogs which have caused extensive damage to some areas of the habitat.

Please buy a hat or t-shirt if you like them — each purchase goes to support the Sanctuary!

See them all here

Pure Beauty & Nonhuman Teachers: Garden Blend

We also want to share a project that has been percolating for quite some time with our friends at Pure Beauty, a cannabis company doing unusually thoughtful work in the green arts. While other cannabis outfits are busy crossing "Napalm Nacho" with "Scab Apple," Pure Beauty is making introspective weed for your JPL-employed weird-uncle.

The result of this cross- pollination? A new take on the spleeeef, rolled for gentle recalibration, not ego death. It features a pinch of everyone's favorite flower, plus a cohort of non- psychoactive herbs that we think your lungs'll love. Basically, we did it because both our projects begin with the premise that plants aren't just scenery in the theater of life, but protagonists in its unfolding plot.

These giggle twigs are made from Mullein, Red Raspberry, Mugwort, Damiana, Rose, Calendula, Lavender, Catnip, Lobelia, Vanilla, and a CBD- dominant cannabis strain (Terry I & Gelato), with nary a whisper of THC. Burning smooth like a break-room secret, these wizard's toothpicks will kiss your brain on the cheek, but won't rearrange your atoms. You're welcome!

Also, a percentage of proceeds from these weird rollies goes to support Nonhuman Teachers, our nonprofit dedicated to centering the voices of our chlorophyll'd collaborators through new forms of ecological storytelling. Think of it as an offering to the leafy ones who breathed us into being.

Check them out here

Updates from Geoponika

Our friend Andy Kennedy-Derkay recently shot some beautiful photos of home we designed the landscape for in the Hollywood Hills (the home addition was designed by Commune and built by Echo Projects).