We've wrapped up with our fifth and final Nature Explore family! Mark and Beth Reimer have an interesting space that already has a number of trees and some interesting landscaping. It was a bit of a jungle the first time we visited. Beth explained it perfectly when she said, “It's like nature threw up in our backyard!”
Mark did a lot of work after our first visit, however, and now the yard is cleared and we were able to get a much better look at what we had to work with.

Our fourth Nature Explore family was the first family we chose for the project and we're so glad we chose them! Ezra and Emily shared some very interesting insights and fantastic suggestions for Nature Explore. They also have some of the youngest children we've worked with during this project. In fact, baby Desmond was only four days old when Ezra and Emily submitted their application!

We wrapped up with our third Nature Explore family early this week. Melissa Sharapova and her three children were an absolute delight to work with! Since Melissa already possesses a lot of knowledge about landscape design and how to acquire resources, we got to focus on different things with this family.

We met with our second Nature Explore family on September 8 and 9. Zeb Buckley and Leana Gwerin invited us into their beautiful space, which is located on a cul-de-sac in Iowa City. The neighborhood is full of garden-loving folks who are all supportive of front yard gardens and getting children out in nature.

This past week we started meeting with the families who were selected to participate in the Nature Explore Residential Design pilot program. What a week it has been!