Urban Rewilding Experiments

Urban Rewilding Experiments

How to Rewild a Vacant Lot Without Wasting Time on the Wrong Species

You phase onto the lot. Cigarette butts, shattered glass, a rusted shopping cart. The soil is compacted, baked hard by three decades of neglect. But y...

Urban Rewilding Experiments

The One Thing Most Rewilding Projects Get Wrong About Community Buy-In

I once watched a rewilding project install a dozen native plant species in a community lot. The team had done their homework—soil tests, pollinator au...

Urban Rewilding Experiments

Choosing Native Plants Without Creating a Weed Patch: What to Fix First

Last spring, I watched a friend spend $800 on native plugs for a 400-square-foot backyard. By August, it looked like a vacant lot — burdock stalks six...

Urban Rewilding Experiments

When 'Greening' a Lot Backfires: 3 Urban Rewilding Mistakes to Avoid

In 2019, a Detroit community group turned a vacant lot into a native prairie. By 2020, it was a thicket of mugwort and burdock—plants the volunteers h...