During her year with Grassroots Ecology, Habitat Restoration Intern Aranza Aranda was inspired to incorporate native plants into her own garden. Read on for a timeline of the process, and her lessons and takeaways from creating a partially-native landscape at home.

Late summer in the native plant garden teaches us to appreciate subtlety and quietude. While some may look at these natural landscapes as dead or brown, we see an important function and structure to provide habitat to insects, lizards, and birds feeding on the senescing flowers and seedheads.