Restoring a Tall Grass Prairie in a Suburban Rural Neighborhood

Julie Mattox, owner of Mattox Prairie Farms in Yantis, Texas, is a steward of the land she owns. Since purchasing the land in 2010, she knew that she wanted the tall grass prairie to come back, along with the wildlife that call it home.

Mattox Prairie Farms is a “different type of place” than what NRCS typically sees, according to John Stone, a district conservation with NRCS, who describes it as the sort of place that enables him to be learning all the time.

“Through Ms. Mattox’s efforts here on her property, though it is small, what a blueprint of success that you can have, to bring in diversity on a Savannah landscape and start to see some of these other species come back in,” says Brandon Bing, a range conservationist with NRCS. “Species that hadn’t been there in years. That’s what she’s doing out here.”