Prairie Up

So many suburbs, too, with no street trees. Crazy.

Times are changing. Prairie up.

You Love Your Native Garden. But Will Buyers Love It Too? (Gift Article) For homeowners who have ‘rewilded’ their gardens into mini nature preserves, a moment of truth arrives when they prepare to sell.

I've felt this for a long time now. (But also, I really need an Oxford comma in that least sentence.)

a thought worth pondering

This is "easier" to manage because it doesn't need to be mowed every week or watered (ever) or fertilized (ever) and w**ds aren't much of an issue (mostly black medic on the edges and some siberian elm seedlings).

It's NOT "easier" because someone can't be hired for $25 to take care of it every week for 10 minutes. And because you do need to know SOMETHING about each plant species -- like when it flowers, when it goes to seed, how it reproduces, how large it gets, how long it's anticipated to live, what will replace it when it goes, what's a "w**d" and what isn't.

This landscapes does clean and cool the air far more effectively than a close-clipped monoculture lawn. It reduces flooding. It certainly provides more habitat for everything one could think of, including ticks and mosquitoes but also birds and butterflies and bees and beetles and spiders.

Because it's edge habitat -- the nature of a small suburban lot that borders woods and has trees on it -- there is preferred tick habitat (damp / cool shade near sunlight). If it was 100% open sunny meadow there'd be fewer ticks. But yes, nature exists here. And because we have so little nature left in urban and suburban areas we have issues with heat island effects, polluted air, flooding, etc, as well as a loss of contact with beneficial microbes that would reduce allergy development in young kids. Plus, creative play in more diverse landscapes increases cognitive and emotional behavior in kids (something cleaning and cooling the air also does).

I've written about this in all of my books, including the new one coming out in 2027. I've shared titles of books and research on these topics found in the appendix of my books.

But it doesn't matter. We're a very propagandized culture. Who benefits from stoking our fear of nature and wildness? What is less healthy -- being bitten by a bug or walking on treated lawn with no cover from hot summer sun? (That might depend a bit on allergies perhaps.)

You're here because to some degree you already agree with most things posted on this page about habitat, lawns, climate, extinction, etc. And while a lawn converted to native plant garden is not a religion that needs to meet a quota, we do need more of us woken to the issues, about acting locally, and seeing how empowered we are and in turn how liberated we can be when we start rethinking pretty.

Because lawn is a very, very recent phenomenon in western society, and especially in the United States. And especially suburbs and lawns within suburbs. Lawn hasn't always been the way. It's not intractable. It's also not sustainable. Similar things can be said about governments and laws and policies and thus beliefs.

We are transient -- and perhaps that transience makes us clutch to the most simplified narratives in our lives all that much more. Stability is not found in the lines of a green carpet, but in the organic free-form of fractal equations replicating with the power of sunlight and the interdependent community of wildlife that has literally given us our lives.

Plant something. I dare you. And prairie up in all the ways.

How does this apply to lawn?

Happy National Prairie Day!

It's been just 3 weeks since install and you can already see growth. Amazing. Of course, lots of good rain in that period too, which is shocking after a bone dry winter. Touched up with 700+ plants today and will check in again in one month (the total was about 11,500 plugs).

During this month's Prairie Upping monthly Q&A I went over the plant list and some design methodology, along with other sundry. You can still watch that recording (and all 4 recordings so far this year) by signing up at ye olde website.

It's been a while since I introduced myself and my work -- and in between we've had lots of new folks join us. What you SHOULD do is join the newsletter and don't let Meta control your life (link in comments).

I'm Benjamin Vogt, natural / native plant garden designer based in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. My locale does not mean what I share is Great Plains / Midwest only, as so much of what we discuss can and should be translated to ecoregions beyond my tallgrass, and I say as much in books and classes.

I'm the author of two books; the best-selling Prairie Up which is the newbie / practical how, and A New Garden Ethic which is the philosophical / activist why. In early 2027 my third garden-related book will arrive titled Unlawn America: A Grassroots Guide to Rewilding Your Yard; it will be a mix of history / research / activism as well as deeper, practical guidance that builds off of Prairie Up.

My design work has been featured in places like Better Homes and Gardens, Dwell, Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Midwest Living, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. I speak internationally for a wide variety of organizations, and offer tons of free / low cost / not so low cost resources on the website to help folks unlawn America from the ground up. Booklets, classes, design workshop, webinars, monthly Q&A chat with me, shirts and signs and mugs -- it's a rethinking pretty party. And you can always hire me to help you transform your lawn, long distance or locally.

I believe native plants are critical to sustainable design, are in fact an ethical component to rewilding areas where we live, work, and play, but won't be militant about it (while there was a time when I would be mega hard core, I'm simply now trying to walk the walk and lead by extreme example, which seems to irk some folks even more). Have a daylily your grandma passed down to you? Go for it. I only know of one plant police and that's city and county w**d control -- which I have a lot to say about in the new book.

So welcome! I don't hold back, I believe in stuff like the interrelationship between climate change, mass extinction, human supremacy, oligarchy, sexism, and racism (eco feminism, deep ecology) that inform all of my work -- well, read A New Garden Ethic.

Plant something. I dare you.