I grew up in the country, wandering the dogwood-dappled, piney woods of North Louisiana that surrounded my birthplace—Arcadia—that also served as the deathplace (1934) of Bonnie and Clyde. When I came upon a plant I did not know, I would take a sample or a description of it to my daddy, who would provide the name. My daddy knew his natives. His mother—Inez Saretha Parker Conger (1897-1986), originally of Wedowee, Alabama—had a 4-acre "show garden," wrote for horticultural magazines, and had shared an interest in native plants with her botanist, horticulturist, ornithologist, historian, archeologist, preservationist, naturalist, conservationist, author friend Caroline Dorman (1888-1971, founder of the Kisatchie National Forest in 1930). My father Sidney Conger (1924-1993) hybridized native Louisiana irises—he specialized in reds—some of which are still valued by breeders to this day.

On the other—my mother's—side of my family, my grandfather Vernon Lee Davis (born in Ruston, Louisiana, but was living in New Orleans during my lifetime) also hybridized native Louisiana irises. He is purported to have been a member of the search team out in the swamps that located the first pure white iris, that proved invaluable to hybriders in expanding the color palette of the Louisianas. My parents met at an iris show in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1943.

When I came to Los Angeles in 1991 and finally had a chance to establish a garden of my own in 1994, I took an especial interest in native California plants, and have become a bit of a proselytizer here at the Ortiz Taylor House (Los Angeles City Historic Cultural Monument No. 1144) and via Wild Yards Project, an organization founded by my friend David Newsom. On the other side of our hill here in the Silver Lake area of L.A. once ran the Pacific Electric Red Car trolley (1903-1955). A 50' band of its former course—running about 1 mile and comprising 10 acres—remains still undeveloped to this day. Incredible! Several of us neighbors work to maintain it as a wild, open space, to preserve and reestablish native trees (some protected by law), shrubs, and wildflowers, and to support further development of native habitat—all in the hopes that the owner might concede someday and sell it to the Trust for Public Land or the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In the meantime, about once per month, I lead a hike for neighbors, friends, and anyone who is interested, sharing what I know about the history of the immediate area, native plants, and any plant with nutrional or medicinal properties.

Otherwise, I work as a psychotherapist and occasionally perform operatic character tenor roles.