Kelly D. Norris

Kelly D. Norris Plantsman, planting designer, artist, author working to plant the world a better place! Award-winning author and plantsman.

The first director of horticulture at Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden (Des Moines, Iowa). Creator of Three Oaks Garden (Des Moines, Iowa).

The Trolley Line is an ongoing study in ruderality here at , reimagining a novel ecology that speaks to the history of ...
06/16/2026

The Trolley Line is an ongoing study in ruderality here at , reimagining a novel ecology that speaks to the history of our neighborhood. From a technical perspective, the project was less an experiment in species selection, but more an investigation into a cost-effective method for rapid seedling establishment on a 10% slope. You can see more images here: https://www.kellydnorris.com/projects/trolleyline.

Quick synopsis: Last spring, we decompacted the slope on the east side of the property, laid repurposed railroad track, built a limestone cheek wall, and created a path from reclaimed concrete (urbanite, if you prefer). The sowing bed was prepared with a 50/50 experimental medium of coarse sand chips (the refuse from riverbed sand screening at a local quarry) and biochar blend. After an initial seeding (across two applications due to weather), stewardship in the first growing season (2025) included three mowings, some hand weeding, and sparing overhead irrigation. This year, the biennials and short-lived perennials are toppling over each other after a perfect storm (figuratively and literally) of heat and rainfall in the last month. The internodes of some of these species are up to 8 inches long. It's absurd in the most beautiful way.

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

After five years, and the vision for its inception are coalescing. The Taylor red cedars (Juniperus virginiana ‘Taylor...
06/12/2026

After five years, and the vision for its inception are coalescing. The Taylor red cedars (Juniperus virginiana ‘Taylor’) sub for columns, recalling ruins (bother real and imagined here), and scaffold the plant-driven reclamation in their midst. Yesterday’s storm has hastened our “Chelsea chopping,” toppling many tall stems, the product of abounding growth this spring. Despite the hand-grazing and shearing ahead, the show will go on much longer into summer. Cheers to your good gardening and planting this weekend as always.

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

Ample rain and warm nights have the garden tripping over itself right now. These photos from last week already feel unti...
06/10/2026

Ample rain and warm nights have the garden tripping over itself right now. These photos from last week already feel untimely, but of course the Echinacea paradoxa (yellow coneflower) and its associates are still going full throttle into June. The heat has finished off most of the penstemon. Next week promises a return to more seasonable temperatures and hopefully a better mood for working in the garden.

The daily rhythm of observation, noticing, and taking action when needed adds up to a gardener's education. It deepens my judgment about plants in design. This small-bore phenology can produce dramatic results when scaling up a large planting design or a certain sophistication in a smaller space where every detail matters. What blooms when? What follows it in procession? Sometimes the most intriguing combinations happen as one species' departure holds the door for another's entry.

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

New project up on the portfolio today: this richly detailed meadow I created for that was recently featured alongside h...
06/08/2026

New project up on the portfolio today: this richly detailed meadow I created for that was recently featured alongside her amazing home in . We also had the chance to do a sizable sedge lawn installation here, which has settled in admirably, even amid the roving paw prints of a very friendly dog.

You can see more of 's work and a write-up in the portfolio: https://www.kellydnorris.com/projects/pleasantviewmeadow.

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

A June prairie blizzard delivered in the form of Hesperostipa spartea (porcupine grass) as it goes to seed and begins it...
06/05/2026

A June prairie blizzard delivered in the form of Hesperostipa spartea (porcupine grass) as it goes to seed and begins its quasi-summer dormancy. Penstemon cobaea (prairie beardtongue) have peaked, just in time to usher in the various coneflowers (Echinacea paradoxa, simulata, pallida, etc.) It's also been the best year for Gillenia stipulata (syn. Porteranthus stipulatus), as seen in the second image, thanks to the deer's generosity in ignoring them this year. I first encountered this plant on my first botanical excursion to the Ozarks in 2009, growing midway down an exposed, grassy slope. It finally entered my planting practice nearly a decade later, and I've not been without it since.

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

I took this photo four days ago and it already seems outdated. We're in that "leaping" stage of spring. But I'm a big fa...
05/31/2026

I took this photo four days ago and it already seems outdated. We're in that "leaping" stage of spring. But I'm a big fan of the silver and green vibe of with Amorpha canescens (leadplant) leading the charge with Lonicera reticulata 'Kintzley's Ghost' (Kintzley's Ghost grape honeysuckle) playing backup. This isn't a color scheme in the design, first and foremost. It's a direct connection to our precedent natural history: the prairie in spring offers glimmers of bold colors sailing in a sea of green, a promise of much more biomass to come. We grew these leadplants from a collection I made in 2020, and six patient years later, they've finally grown into their own. With any luck, they'll be with us for years to come. We're gardening for the long haul here...

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

Spring creeps, then leaps. The first coneflowers have unfurled this week in at , along with a bevy of Penstemon cobae...
05/29/2026

Spring creeps, then leaps. The first coneflowers have unfurled this week in at , along with a bevy of Penstemon cobaea (prairie beardtongue). The awns of Hesperostipa spartea (porcupine grass) are glimmering in the evening breeze. The pewter foliage of Amorpha canescens (leadplant) has never looked richer. I love this time of year and its looming sense of exuberance. We know there's much more coming.

A busy couple weeks of logistics and installations had me thinking about planting patterns. I shared a few thoughts in the May newsletter that went out earlier this week. If you missed it, sign up at the link in my bio and I'll send it to you. Although I took the image after I sent the newsletter, the second photo depicts a lovely matrix of Euthamia gymnospermoides (western grass-leaved goldenrod) weaving through the emergent profiles of penstemon, Asclepias speciosa (showy milkweed) and Sporobolus asper (rough dropseed).

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

A trio of spring vignettes from the here at last Friday evening before the clouds rolled in. Moody shadows to offset...
05/19/2026

A trio of spring vignettes from the here at last Friday evening before the clouds rolled in. Moody shadows to offset the Amsonia illustris 'Seventh Inning Stretch' (Seventh Inning Stretch bluestar), Zizia aurea (golden alexander), Baptisia 'Smoking Gun' (Smoking Gun false indigo), Triosteum perfoliatum 'Chocolate River' (Chocolate River horse gentian), and a raft of Camassia just going over. Eight years on, many of the structural herbaceous perennials have fulfilled their promise of a shrubbier, textural prairie where grasses share space rather than dominate it. You can see this kind of prairie developing with increasing fire intervals (and since fire isn't a management option in the city, that informs our use of the precedent).

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

Our friend and colleague Matty Young () recently commented, "Your garden isn't just a garden. It's a place." Indeed, thi...
05/14/2026

Our friend and colleague Matty Young () recently commented, "Your garden isn't just a garden. It's a place." Indeed, this place is churning through spring right now, seemingly on a rocket ship to the solstice. Waves of Zizia aurea (golden Alexander), Packera aurea (golden ragwort), Aquilegia canadensis (wild columbine) lead the charge with dozens of other associates at lower levels of abundance. This view through The Valley, our homage to a wet ditch, needs more editing, which I peck away at every evening. A massive colony of Anemone canadensis (Canada anemone) is just about to pop. This is the kind of garden geared towards roving, spreading tendencies; green sponges for infiltrating water as it makes its way down our hill.



ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

Happy World Collage Day ()! Here are two more from my Prairie Meditations series that I shared back in January, subtle i...
05/09/2026

Happy World Collage Day ()! Here are two more from my Prairie Meditations series that I shared back in January, subtle iterations on the same idea that get me to thinking about the relative abundances of charismatic species. These are digital photography collages produced by layering parts of different images taken on the same day under similar lighting conditions. The photos date from September 2024 on a splendid day afield at Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois. The collages reimagine what we've lost in the Midwestern landscape, alongside the computational possibilities of what could exist again, all grounded in the hope of what still thrives in these important remnants today.

ABOUT: Kelly D. Norris is an award-winning plantsman and author based at Three Oaks Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. His studio explores the intersections of people, plants, and place through ecological, site-specific design and art. Kelly’s garden work has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and in numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book Your Natural Garden debuted in 2025 from Cool Springs Press. Kelly and his team specialize in creating diverse and dynamic gardens that reimagine places for consilient encounters with the natural world. For more information or to discuss a possible commission, please contact via the link in the bio!

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