THE VIBRANT NEW NATURAL GARDENING OF KELLY D. NORRIS
- Jennifer Jewell
- Apr 3
- 6 min read
You might remember Cultivating Place's first conversation with Iowa-based
plantsman, Kelly D. Norris, back in 2021, in celebration of his book "New
Naturalism, designing and planting a resilient, ecologically vibrant home garden". And we’re so pleased to get him back this week, in conversation with CP Guest Host Ben Futa to talk more about this current moment in naturalistic design, and Kelly’s newest and very useful book, "Your Natural Garden, a practical guide to caring for an ecologically vibrant home garden", which published in January of this year.
Kelly is one of the leading horticulturists of this generation, and in his practice, he explores the narrative of place through site-specific plantings and landscape
interventions. An award-winning author and plantsman, his eponymous design
studio works in public and private places across North America. The studio annually produces the New Naturalism Academy, a virtual school for enthusiastic designers, as a commitment to continuing education and lifelong learning. He’s also the founder and curator of The Public Horticulture Company, an emerging ecological landscape startup based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Kelly is as well the former director of horticulture and education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, where for eight years, he directed efforts in design, curation, programming, garden, and facility management to nearly $20 million in capital projects. We’re so pleased to share his plant-driven, utterly magic, paradigm-shifting work with you all again.
Kelly and Ben go way back to their early days of undergrad, which Ben says feels a bit wild and surreal to say out loud – but also why it’s his sincere joy to be in conversation with, and welcome him back to Cultivating Place.
From Ben: My conversation with Kelly reminded me how much I actually love the passage of time, which is especially poignant on this side of the vernal equinox as spring rains and warmer days are now in the immediate forecast.
So often I think many of us are afraid of time: fearful of getting older, of new aches and pains, ailments and emergencies, of loss and grief. Of the many superpowers of plants, their ability to remind us to be present, in the moment, and allow ourselves to feel joy – even for a few brief moments – is indispensable.
A friend recently shared the mindset that action cures fear. My love for the passage of time is undeniably connected to my garden practice, and whenever I feel myself spiraling when I think about the future, imaging all possible worse-case scenarios, I’ve found that simply taking a few moments to step out in to my garden and observe what’s changed from one day to the next (and this time of year things change by the hour), resets my outlook and reframes it in the context of hope, beauty, and possibility.
This is when the new ideas drop in, when I’m at my most calm, creative, and grounded. The garden reminds me that time isn’t something to fear or avoid, but rather something to embrace as an essential ingredient in the making of everything that ever was, and ever will be, beautiful and joyful.
I love how Kelly framed his relationship to his garden like a television show. Each season brings new characters, new story arcs, new plot lines to explore and understand. With each episode we fall more deeply in love with the characters we’ve come to love and care for so much, over so many years, and as a result, each year our experience becomes all the more richer, and transformative as a result.
No matter how you care for plants in your own life, I hope you are able to take a moment today (and every day, really), to acknowledge how the plants are caring for you, in return.
What would happen if you allowed yourself to be led, rather
than leading…
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All Photos courtesy of Kelly D. Norris. All rights reserved.
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JOIN US again next week, Jennifer is back with a Love Letter to A Garden, in conversation with the inimitable Debbie Millman. Host of the longstanding and beloved Design Matters Podcast. A life long gardener, Debbie's newest book is Love Letter to a Garden. A place in which we find everything from nothing.....or is that we find everything from the EVERYTHING that is any garden. That's right here, next week. Listen in!
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Thinking out loud this week...
Hey, it's Ben-
I agree with Kelly – I want our gardens to be more than “just pretty” – none of us want to be defined by just one characteristic of our personality, so why should we do this to our gardens?
Our gardens are living, breathing, changing, social creatures in their own right, and we – as their caretakers and collaborators, creators and stewards – are in a constant and ever-evolving relationship with them, too.
I’m noticing a recurring theme in my conversations lately, specifically around this idea of deepening curiosity and creativity – this notion, perhaps, of allowing ourselves to be led, rather than feeling the pressure to lead.
If you feel a pressure that your garden should look a certain way or you should grow certain things or you find yourself comparing your plantings to others – stop. Right now.
I’d love for you instead to consider that there is no other garden like yours, no place like yours, and no better time than now to grow what brings you joy and makes the world around you better – whether that’s through beauty, habitat, sustenance, or all of the above.
Gardens and gardening are wildly empowering, if we allow them to be. Think about gardening in collaboration and community, rather than competition and comparison, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.
I’m hooked on this idea of the power of front yard gardens, especially when it comes to connecting with our neighbors and communities again.
I think so often at least within U.S. gardens, we tend to limit our efforts to the back yard because those spaces feel more private, inwardly-focused, it’s harder for us to be “judged” in that space.
When we do garden in the front yard, we can’t not be conscious of the reality that there are simply more eyes and minds attuned to what we’re growing and how. This is, after all, the notion behind curb appeal.
I certainly feel this in my own garden, and the expectations feel different in front of our house than they do in the back. Similar to Kelly, I’ve also planted a designed meadow where our front lawn used to be, and it brings me no end of joy to see people walking past along the sidewalk, especially when they stop to
admire something. Cue the dopamine.
But, this also means the front garden can sometimes feel like a higher-pressure place, almost like I’m “on stage” when gardening there. I intentionally don’t wear headphones so that I can intentionally say hello to folks who might pass by.
Our front stoop, a cold, hard block of concrete, is the only real place to sit and enjoy the front garden – otherwise, it’s mostly meant as a space to walk through or observe while driving by. It’s not designed as a space to linger or sit down and welcome a group of friends, and that’s ok.
I do dream of the day when our front garden no longer feels like a lonely island, and instead is one of many patches in an ever- expanding quilt of gardens and gardeners along our street who are all hell-bent on making our community and our neighborhood more connected, more beautiful, and more welcoming for all living things.
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