who we are, what we do
Marc and Candi Pastorek are business partners in Pastorek Habitats, a Louisiana-based landscape design and consulting firm offering a wide range of services that include consulting, landscape design, and the production of custom-designed native seed mixes.
Established in 1984, we pioneered the production of seed for Cajun Prairie, pine savanna, and Blackland prairie systems of Louisiana. We have devoted many years to research and experimentation to develop effective methods for growing plant species, including some that are rare and endangered.
Our area of study and range of our work over the last 25 years has extended from east Texas to western Alabama, including the Black Belt region of Mississippi and Alabama.
In 1997, we began establishing prairie seed production fields at our farm in Pearl River County, Mississippi. The farm serves as a refuge for rare genetics and as a model for practical commercial seed production. The farm has been featured in an article in Landscape Design magazine an as a chapter in the book Southeastern Grasslands; Biodiversity, Ecology, and Management.
Marc began his work with restoration management at Crosby Arboretum in Picayune Mississippi in 1990, assisting with prescribed fires until 2017. He was President of the Cajun Prairie Habitat Preservation Society from 2000-2002 and was burn manager at the Cajun Prairie Restoration Project in Eunice, Louisiana from 2008-2021.
Our seed mixes can be custom designed for site-specific requirements. We have contributed to the establishment 2191.4 acres or restored prairie in eight wetland mitigation banks in Louisiana using our highly diverse “wet prairie” seed mixes.
Over the last 25-plus years, we’ve developed and perfected practical methods for collecting, processing, and storing local genotypic prairie seed and providing this seed to the general public to be used in landscape projects of varying types and sizes. Our unique seed mixes consist of seed of native perennial wildflowers, native grasses, and “grass-likes” that are genetically adaptable.
We offer our special seed for those interested in restoring the biological integrity of the landscape which in turn restores soil hydrology and eventually re-establishes the food web: the re-building of food chains. Southeastern native grasslands are some of the most threatened ecosystems in the North America, considered by biologists to be critically endangered. These imperiled grassland communities provide essential habitat for many rare and typically unheard of and often unseen insect species – Butterfies and Bees, Beetles and Grasshoppers, a multitude of insect wildlife.
Copyright 2020 MG Pastorek
Fire Gardens: fire-generated grassland seed 