Rharian Fields

creating spaces for wildlife to raise their young is when it all comes together - you’ve done something so special with your outdoor space 🐛🦋

food, water, and shelter is bring things into your yard but a place to keep little ones safe is what makes them stay.

if you’re looking to invite specific species of birds or insects, look up their specific requirements for having babies. generic bird or host plants might be widely available but often aren’t the best choices.

I’m glad the ai slop police are out there but… don’t come for me lol

post/garden by on the other big platform with short-form videos. here are my thoughts on how to recreate this viral garden in the Houston area

creating cover is the part of habitat design that most people accidentally undo every weekend.

the instinct to keep everything tidy, trimmed, open, and visible is exactly what makes a yard uninhabitable for most wildlife - cover is survival infrastructure. it’s where things hide from predators, wait out bad weather, and get through temperature extremes.

the most valuable things you can have: dense native shrubs, thickets you don’t touch, brush piles in a back corner if you need them out of sight. a fence covered in a vine is a corridor.

a single hedge does a fraction of what a layered planting does. the yard that looks controlled is often the yard that’s empty

creating water sources is one of those things that sounds complicated until you realize you’re probably already halfway there. a cistern, a rain barrel, a rain garden - these aren’t separate projects, they’re one connected system that keeps water available even when it hasn’t rained in three weeks.

the details matter though - shallow edges matter for butterflies, bees and small birds, because they can’t use a deep bowl. i have insect watering stations specifically for that.

a consistently damp or muddy spot isn’t a problem, it’s a resource - mud daubers and some native bees use it for nesting.

i also talk about mosquito prevention in this one because yes, standing water is a real concern and there are simple ways to manage it without nuking everything else you’re trying to build.

the goal is water availability across seasons, not just after rain. if you’re designing for wildlife, water is non-negotiable 💕

(Currently looking for someone to handle installation work - DM me if that’s you!)

Honestly, there’s no single path. Mine started with a year-long permaculture certification with alongside regenerative farmers and land stewards and it was the perfect foundation for the residential fine garden design work I do now.

Landscape architecture school is another route, but most of those grads end up in civil-based firm work, which is a totally different world.

The most exciting thing about this industry right now? There are roles and niches that are under-peopled. Like fine garden design with sustainable practices in Texas 💕

creating food sources is one of the most rewarding parts of building a sustainable garden. getting to see wildlife show up the second you give them something to work with 😍 and it doesn’t have to be your whole yard - it’s mostly about shifting what you’re planting and what you’re letting stay.

native plants to our ecoregions already have the relationships built in with the local wildlife. a non-native ornamental can look beautiful and feed almost nothing. sometimes the biggest shift we have to make is our perception of beauty

people have always figured out how to grow food in the spaces they had. indigenous peoples who cultivated and shaped the amazon. market growers in france working small plots intensively. victory gardens during world war two that turned front yards into food.

looking back at history, we are one of the most disconnected generations from our food sources - and there has never been a more important time to reconnect with the land and how we nourish ourselves.

, whose work centers climate hope and the idea that we already have the solutions we need - talks about climate victory gardens as part of that answer. i believe her!

for me it comes back to food sovereignty and remembering that we are part of these ecosystems, not separate from them 💞

This isn’t my usual content, but I feel called to say something. I left my career in education to start my garden design business - not because I stopped loving it, but because I watched learning disappear from classrooms in real time. And not because of bad teachers… because of the STAAR test.

I sat in rooms nearly in tears, fighting for kids who weren’t being seen as future members of our communities - only as a test score.

I live in HISD. A district that lost its elected school board because of this test. My vote has no voice in my own neighborhood schools.

If we want a functioning society in Texas, this has to change. Vote Gina Hinojosa for governor🗳️