Prairie Up

10/17/2026

10/17/2026

But it's not. These images are carbon sequestering, air cleaning, soil building, flood mitigating, wildlife giving machines in action. Rethink pretty. Unlawn America.

The Earth laughs -- and fights back -- with flowers. And so do we.

[All images show some of the 140 projects I've worked on in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska with wonderful clients. For more images please see the portfolio page at the website.]

10/16/2026

It's Friday night with our first freeze imminent. I'll still be planting over the next week, and there are lots of tree seedlings to treat at HQ. Stewarding this space as best I can in the time I have -- and looking forward to seeing the wildlife pop back out into the warm sunlight tomorrow afternoon as we enjoy the last flowers together (and then the foliage!).

10/16/2026

I know a lot of us are upset about trees being cut down, but have you heard about the roadless rule?

And no one better comment with "stay out of politics" on a gardening page because politics are deep inside your blood vessels and lungs and organs with increased air and water pollution as regulations are rolled back due to "government overreach" (aka some investors who donated lots of money aka bribes want regs rolled back to increase their wealth before it all comes crashing down). And polluted air and water also harm wildlife, which we presume to support here with natural gardening using native plants.

Of course with climate change, due to increased burning of fossil fuels (something oil and gas and coal companies have known about for like 100 years), leaves and pollen and nectar become less nutritious. I really wouldn't want to have a natural garden anywhere near a data center.

We really need an entirely new system, though, because if this one led to *gestures broadly* then we need more than patches -- although we'll have to start with patches. I guess.

10/16/2026

Hot, then freaking cold, then warm. It's still planting season here amongst the asters!

10/15/2026

Several years ago I ran a 4-week, online workshop. I lectured on the basics of natural design, gave reading and homework assignments, folks made up some designs, and we shared and discussed those designs.

Would you be interested in something like this again? I'm already running near-monthly webinars, and 10 months out of the year is the Prairie Upping community where I do a brief talk and then we have candid Q&A looking at your landscapes.

I just don't know what you want / need / would like to see that's not currently available or accessible.

I am working on a larger seminar right now for January were several leaders in natural design will be coming together in an awesome, 3-hour event with lots of extra goodies. Stay tuned!

10/14/2026

We've got it in our heads that wildlife are a threat and that we're better than other species. Nope and nope. Plants and animals literally make our world work, and make our existence possible. Alas, supremacy is baked into municipal codes as well as greenspace design.

When cities like mine tout new LEED buildings and developments but then slather them in lawn while keeping stringent w**d code laws on the books that enforce high-input monocultures, something is certainly amiss. Green infrastructure is critical to a green community, part of building sustainably, as said infrastructure works at cleaning and cooling the air, reducing energy consumption (thus greenhouse gas emissions), reducing the need for greenhouse gas emitting management equipment like mowers and blowers, and treating runoff while reducing flooding. That's not just street trees, either, that's the entire layer from tree to shrub to perennial flowers and grasses and sedges. Yes, not just trees marooned in lawn.

So every time we can create a new example, an alternative that we tend to easily celebrate just outside city limits (like a green corridor) but where most people can't travel to so let's get them INTO the urban core, we are asking our cities for a better and healthier way forward.

Even a vacant lot slathered in fruit trees with some meadow, a food forest, (was reading about a new KC initiative doing this) would be something and build community of humans and wildlife, and humans interacting with wildlife.

10/13/2026

Guess which one?

10/13/2026

I do use a few native plant cultivars, including a switchgrass and a little bluestem and a few aster. Here's Symphyotrichum novae-angliae 'Purple Dome' which is a stellar performer in front yard renovations. Why is is stellar? A much shorter stature than the species with a mounding effect which lends to compactness and more neatness. It also echoes the useless mums for sale on the grocery store sidewalk that people decorate their porches with while actually being a nectar hub for late season pollinators.

I'm also a big fan of Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'October Skies' because of it's lower, mounding habit and gazillion flowers that go until November. Very drought tolerant but, withing a few years, will shade out and kill things under it (not Carex blanda though). Many a baby bunny enjoys the refuge of October Skies, and I love it (they don't eat it, but if they did I wouldn't mind, it's an exuberant plant).