Prairie
Plant native wildflowers and grasses for pollinators and songbirds. Reinvigorate your prairie with prescribed fire, mowing, and invasive species management.
Forestry
Manage your woodlands for wildlife habitat, recreation, and profit. Restore an oak savanna, plant a windbreak, remove invasive species, or grow an edible landscape.
Water
Improve water quality and create habitat for turtles, frogs, dragonflies, and other wildlife. Restore a stream, construct a wetland, grow prairie strips, or plant cover crops.
Land Walks
Explore your land with an ecological interpreter. Define your vision, investigate new opportunities, and create a plan of action to meet your objectives.
Featured Stories
Neighborhood Collaboration Protects Land, Evaluates Streambank Erosion
Dick Van Deusen is harnessing living ecosystems to protect his hillside home from streambank erosion. Pictured above with spouse, Marjorie Sigel. In 1971, Dick Van Deusen’s quiet woodland home near Ames was still under construction when he learned that the field across the creek was for sale. A prospective buyer intended to develop a motorcycle…
Physical Therapists Create a Health Plan for their Land, Plant Nutrient-Dense Perennials
When Michelle and Steve Cassabaum planted 3,500 trees and shrubs in what had been their cornfield, heads turned. Neighbors to their Nevada, Iowa, farm speculated about what the owners of 21st Century Rehab, PC, a rehabilitation company, were up to. “It was fun to hear what people said,” Steve remembers. The striking additions that had…
Reinvigorating a Native Playscape at Greenwood Elementary
At Greenwood Elementary School in Des Moines, students do not rely on field trips alone to explore Iowa’s native ecosystems–they play among them at recess. In the early 2000s, the school’s outdoor recreation area was on the receiving end of 92,000 gallons of water per inch of rain. Even minor storms etched small gullies across…