Stewardship Stories: Summer 2025
Every act of stewardship counts, and every voice adds to our collective impact. Iowans are invited to tell us what you are doing to support Iowa’s native flora and fauna. Visit our contact page to get started.
Scott and Kelly Siegel
The Siegels have planted many native trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses on their five-acre property. Though Scott is the primary gardener in the family, Kelly joins his gardening adventures.
Kelly: Scott has a love of gardening and just loves to work outside. He doesn’t do things small. I would come home from work, and there would be boxes of trees on the porch.
Scott: We planted arborvitae (not native) and juniper (native to Iowa) to shield our property from the north wind. We planted nut-bearing trees and shrubs as well, including chestnuts (not native) and hazelnuts (native to Iowa).
We planted other native areas (flowers and grasses) to reduce the amount of mowing we had to do. I bought many pollinator seed packages from Prairie Moon in Minnesota.
My other motivations are to use permaculture and agroforestry to build a vibrant park-like setting that we could live off of if necessary.
I got a lot of inspiration from my mother. Mom was a kindergarten teacher and very into nature and wildlife. We had a subscription to National Wildlife Magazine. There was an article in there about building your backyard for wildlife. Our backyard was not big enough back then, but now I have the chance to do it. We plant for wildlife and are noticing more bird variety every year.
My grandfather was a caretaker of Funks Grove Nature Preserve in Illinois, and there were paw paws growing there. We are just out of the range for paw paws here. Winter is rough on them, but hopefully they will do okay as the sheltering cedars grow more. Paw paws are delicious, and I’m hoping to make frozen yogurt with them.
My grandfather tried to get us to grow ginseng in our backyard when I was a kid, but we never did, so I made a little memorial ginseng patch for him here as well.
Hazelnut shrubs on the Siegel property (two rows shown in the foreground) will provide food and shelter for many of Iowa's native animals. Other native plants on the acreage include bee balm, phlox, black-eyed Susan, Mexican hat, prairie primrose, big blue stem, red cedar, wild plum, white fir, viburnum, persimmon, willow, aronia, and many more.
Audrey Mueller
Audrey began planting Iowa natives this year when her husband was faced with some medical issues that compromised his ability to plant a large vegetable garden.
Audrey: My husband and I are farm kids, he from a fruit and vegetable farm and I from a dairy farm. We have always had a large garden and shared what we grew with others. Friends, family, neighbors, and strangers would always leave with something we had grown.
During the winter months, he had a heart issue, and we’ve been dealing with that. Never did I think I’d hear him say, I don’t think I can put the garden in this year. The only thing was, he had it all tilled—all of it. I knew I wasn’t going to put that many vegetables in myself, so three-fourths of what he tilled went into Iowa natives.
I remembered that last year, all my friends were talking about not seeing as many butterflies—me too. The bee and other pollinator populations were also down, so I thought I could do my little part to help. I started small and got a few plants from a friend: bee balm, oxeye sunflower, New England Aster, and butterfly milkweed.
I have had a variety of butterflies and birds in my garden area. Once I counted six different types of butterflies, including monarchs, two types of swallowtails, painted ladies and others.
Dianne Prichard and Pat Douglas
When Dianne Prichard moved into her new neighborhood, she thought she would be the only one interested in a non-traditional lawn. She was delighted to find that her new neighbors, Pat and Gary Douglas, were also considering lawn alternatives. Both Dianne and Pat are giving non-native clover lawn a try and have planted native flower areas behind their homes to attract the pollinators that depend on them.
Dianne: A yard is a great thing. If you live in a high rise in a city, you don’t have a yard, and here we have huge yards. A foreign exchange student once said to me, “you all live in a park. You each have your own private park,” and she was right.
We are lucky to have this opportunity, but I would like to see the city be open to a variety of lawns and lawn care. We blame the farmers for poisoning the rivers, but people that have their lawns fertilized and sprayed are just as guilty.
We need to encourage people to try things that are environmentally sound. Since the industrial revolution we tried things that are not environmentally sound, and it’s time to turn it around.
Pollinators are essential for life and that’s what we’ve got—we have pollinator yards. We are looking ahead to the future, at what’s good for Mother Earth and good for humanity.
People have told me they love it when they drive by. There is interest there — something other than bluegrass. Like fireflies! The fireflies are wonderful.
Pat: We lived in a condo down the street, and we had to get out because it was so restrictive. We planted a tree without permission and they made us take it down because if they let us have a tree, they would have to let everyone else have a tree. My husband said, “This whole back yard is just an empty expanse. It’s useless.” Most people there don’t do anything in their yards. Maybe sometimes when grandkids come they might play out there a little bit but otherwise they use it for nothing, and it’s just a waste.
People are used to what they’re used to. Most people aren’t going to think outside the box. It’s a benign neglect of the environment, and it’s symptomatic of the whole world. People think they can do whatever they want with no consequences.
We moved to our current location and since we’re older, I wanted a yard that would be less troublesome and better for the environment. I read a lot of articles about native plants and clover lawns and got more and more interested in it.
Since then I’ve had two workmen come to my house for different things and they asked “what did you do to your lawn?” I told them I did it on purpose.