Take a walk with us through a living prairie on the campus of Western Iowa Tech Community College. Joined by members of the Loess Hills Wild Ones, including prairie steward Rod Tondreau and the Loess Hills Wild Ones, we experience firsthand the careful art of native seed collecting and the trained eye it takes to see what’s growing beneath the tangle of grasses and flowers.
As Rod identifies prairie clover, black-eyed Susan, stiff sunflower, and more, the landscape begins to come into focus, revealing not just plants, but an ecosystem full of patience, persistence, and life. The seeds gathered on this walk will find a home at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center, where they become part of a native seed library—available to curious gardeners ready to bring a piece of prairie back to their own land.
