Welcome to UrbanPrairie!

Thanks for stopping by my new blog. I'd like to use this blog to raise awareness of native landscapes around our capital city and elsewhere on the plains that inspire me and bring back what God put here in the first place! I'll be sharing some of the projects I'm currently working on and some tips for you to get started with prairie plants. I'm still learning about landscaping but am committed to using native, drought-tolerant plants and have a special sweet spot for native grasses. If you were to put a name on my favorite landscape style, it would be "Colorado Casual." I'm especially interested in how our public spaces are landscaped. I believe that when visitors come to Nebraska, they should see the native species that belong here and feel a sense of place, much like we feel when we visit the mountains. Prairie is a very special environment that used to cover these lands, and as our knowledge of it increases, our appreciation for the vast ecosystem that prairie provides will grow.

“As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of winestains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.”
― Willa Cather, My Antonia 

A view to the North of the "Weber Pasture" in our family. Imagine what it would have looked like 100 years ago, full of wildflowers.