We exist to fill a market void and niche. The plants we sell - and plant ourselves - have purpose. They are not just decorations, though many are very beautiful. They are vital tools to build habitat for songbirds, pollinators & wildlife while creating healthier, more resilient spaces for people and communities.
Prickly Ed's is locally owned and operated by your neighbors, longtime Barrington residents Cindy and Ed Moura. We already know many of you! But for those we have yet to meet, you can read a bit more about us below.
Ed traded his Harley for a tractor & BMW for an eco-diesel pickup truck & left his workaholic salesman days behind. His URI Environmental Science Degree & decades of sales and supply chain experience definitely come in handy these days! When he is not working to procure the very best plants for our beloved customers from growers around the Northeast, you can find him tending his ever expanding prickly pear cactus garden, converting more space to wildlife gardens, creating ingenious things in the workshop, rocking out to the blues, learning to play guitar (sort of) & training chipmunks on the patio - tequila punch in hand. Ed is a lifelong resident of Barrington and has deep roots in the community - ask him about how things used to be here in the good old days - but be prepared, he might just answer! He handles all of the tedious business, technology, and finance sides of the operation, and somehow manages to (mostly) keep things organized and running smoothly even amidst all the wildness created by his wife and business partner (see below)! He is the go-to for all those practical gardening questions you may have or special plant orders you are dreaming up.
Before helping launch and run Prickly Ed's, Cindy spent decades running nonprofit organizations and initiatives locally and nationwide. Nowadays you are likely to find her herding cats, fussing in the ever expanding gardens and wild areas, obsessing over hummingbirds, crafting cocktails, mixing potions, creating vegan delights, and of course extolling the benefits of native plants and ecological garden principles in an effort to un-lawn the suburbs! But most of all, she's constantly dreaming up the next wild idea for Prickly Ed's! She is especially passionate about getting kids back into nature and bringing nature back to kids and believes that backyards and school yards are great places to start. Many locals know Cindy from her years of volunteering for a variety of causes near and dear to her heart including having founded and run Barrington Partnership for Animal Welfare, and currently serving on the Board of the Barrington Land Conservation Trust. Cindy is the webmaster, blog & newsletter writer, and social media manager - thank her or blame her :-)! She regularly conducts and coordinates workshops focused on gardening with nature at the root and actively engages with local environmental leaders to promote a heightened awareness of biodiversity challenges – and solutions - for our region. She is your go to for leaving practicality aside and brainstorming the best wild design ideas!
Where did the name Prickly Ed's Cactus Patch come from you ask? One day, many years ago we learned that cactus (specifically Opuntia humifusa- Eastern Prickly Pear) belonged in our Barrington, RI yard much more than the grass that was growing there. And so began Ed's foray into winter hardy cactus gardening and Cindy’s journey down the rabbit hole of learning all about Native Plants and their many benefits. As more and more lawn was transformed into garden beds teeming with life 🐝🦋🐦🐿🦊🐸🦉🐛 we were hooked!
Our own quest for straight species native plants left us frustrated here in the East Bay Rhode Island/SE Mass area. We also experienced a very big void in the kind of down to earth advice that was needed to support the process of building back habitat at home. And so in the peak of COVID times we decided to stop waiting for somebody else to do something and we opened the growing Prickly Ed’s Enterprise.
But back to the name…it’s a fun play on our still favorite plant, the Prickly Pear 🙄and on Ed’s always charming personality 😉🙄😁! Cindy dreamed it up one afternoon, and it quickly caught on with family & friends! Thankfully despite his prickly name, Ed is actually a great sport & played along. Hey, in the end, it doesn't matter if you are laughing at us or laughing with us. So long as you are laughing...And so a Cactus Patch Native Plant Emporium was born …
Our constantly evolving landscape and expanding gardens wrap around the Emporium. It includes our own home Wildscape that is right next door to the Emporium in Barrington, RI and our adjacent 4+ acres of land in Swansea, MA that features a meadow in the making, native plant rich wetland areas and woodland border habitats with more than 300 species of Northeast Native Plants all working together to help support biodiversity on our patch. For three decades we have been digging in on the trials and tribulations of gardening on the border of Bristol County RI and MA (the "East Bay"). We were very early adopters of the growing trends of forgoing pesticides and chemical interventions and gardening with pollinators, songbirds and other area wildlife in mind. Our yard has been a Certified Wildlife Habitat for more than 15 years and recently we began to devote time to tackling large scale invasive plant removal and native plant restoration work in every corner of the property. Every day is an adventure as we uncover new treasures and challenges. We’ve seen first hand how quickly nature can rebound when just given a chance and are determined to help others experience this phenomenon while bringing life back to our communities! 🐝🦋🦇🦉
In addition to our own decades of hands-on experience, we've participated in hundreds of hours of workshops, seminars, and sessions focused on habitat restoration and nature centered gardening, including attending the Ecology Based Practice Intensive Course with Larry Weaner and Ian Canton, the New Naturalism Academy with Plantsman Kelly D. Norris and we’ve explored each and every one of the courses available through Benjamin Vogt's Monarch Gardens LLC. We are also constantly digging in on the latest writings and research available to help us best help you. We combine our own eclectic backgrounds in environmental science, education, sales, purchasing, management, design, communications, community organizing and advocacy to bring an equally eclectic twist to our business. Along with writing a monthly garden column for the regional newspaper, we offer educational programs for the community and engage with schools and community groups working to bring life back to their spaces.
The nearly 5 acres of open land we care for in Swansea, MA adjacent to our home in Barrington, RI includes a National Grid Powerline Right of Way "ROW". During the winter of 2024 with the help of National Grid and ongoing tenacity of our own, we were finally able to make huge progress in clearing out overgrown autumn olive, buckthorn, multiflora rose, invasive honeysuckle, bittersweet, phragmites, and burning bush in our wilder areas adjacent to what visitors here know as overflow parking. It left behind a vast (and slightly overwhelming) land of opportunity to rebuild a thriving native plant community, and that is just what we are doing!
Someday this will be a buzzing Powerline Prairie wrapped in a richly diverse shrubland border. And if we keep saying it enough times eventually it will be true ! We started rebuilding in late fall of 2024 and abundant planting continued throughout the 2025 season. With years of practical planting experience under our belts we opted for planting large numbers of carefully selected live plants versus seeding or plugging in order to advance more rapid growth and cover from our native plant allies. We are pursuing our invasive plant removal and replacement project without the use of any herbicides at all and are instead leaning on tough native plants as are allies. Learn more about fighting plants with plants HERE.
Historically power companies have maintained the ROW by mowing, slashing and spraying. But they are beginning to explore if there might just be a better way. There must be a better way!! Low growing native plant communities in Rights of Way corridors eliminate the need for lots of maintenance while also creating diverse thriving habitats that are essential for biodiversity but rarely exist in our area. Kind of cool. Our little spot here has been included in something called a BioAudit which is exploring the science behind this concept. And we recently learned that due to the world of opportunity - for both progress and learning - our site will be a "Green Lab" in the BioAudit project. The transition time in this space might seem a bit chaotic - but it is planned chaos with fantastic things ahead! It’s pretty interesting and you can read more about it here https://bioaudit.acrt.com/national-grid/. A kick-off event was held for the project in October of 2024, you can dig deeper at that announcement HERE.
