PlantWise Native Landscapes & Ecological Restoration

PlantWise, LLC is a business dedicated to creating, restoring, and interpreting native ecosystems and plant communities throughout Michigan, Ohio and northern Indiana.

About PlantWise

Our mission at PlantWise is to provide the best possible restoration or landscaping services for our clients while doing the most ecological and aesthetic good for the sites in which we work. PlantWise is a business dedicated to creating, restoring, and interpreting native ecosystems and plant communities throughout Michigan and Ohio.

We have worked with a diversity of landowners in the areas of native landscape design and installation, site consultations, management planning, and natural area management. Our experiences in this latter category have deeply informed the former issues, providing a field-based understanding of how planning efforts unfold when implemented. With an emphasis on restoring and creating natural, highly functioning habitats, our work has spanned the Michigan and northern Ohio landscapes, with work in fens, sedge meadows, oak savannas, woodlands, prairies, and many other natural community types. In so doing, we make every effort to protect and promote rare species through the timing and approaches we implement. With extensive experience in invasive plant control, we are able to effectively address ecological threats through the use of fire and/or mechanical and chemical control while nurturing the conservative plant and animal species present.

How we can help

Our Services

Invasive Plant Control

For 25 years, PlantWise has focused on the management and restoration of natural areas in the Great Lakes Region. During that time, we have emerged as a leading ecological management company in the region, providing restoration services across more than 2,000 acres annually.

Prescribed Burning

Since our founding in 1998, we have completed more than 1,100 burns totaling over 17,000 acres on public, residential, land trust, and corporate lands on remnant and planted sites. Burn units range from urban residential sites of ¼-acre or less to rural sites of hundreds of acres in size.

Consulting

Our consulting work is the foundation of what we do. It reflects and supports our mission to provide the best possible restoration or landscaping services for our clients while doing the most ecological and aesthetic good for the sites in which we work.

Native Landscaping

Our hope is to meld our client’s aesthetic, ecological, and edible desires with the assets of the site in a way that produces a landscape that is easy to maintain, enjoyable for the owner, and produces as much environmental benefit as possible.

What Our Customers are saying

Testimonials

“Plantwise has been helping us naturalize our lawn since 1998, when we wanted some relief from mowing our 1.3 acre yard and planted a little patch of prairie wildflowers. Since then, we’ve expanded the prairie part of our yard to about half the yard, and Plantwise planners worked out a planting and management plan with us so that our yard will soon mimic an oak savanna, complete with all of Michigan’s oak and hickory species, many of its shrubs, and of course myriad wildflowers and grasses. We also created a native sedge garden and a Michigan spring flora bed along the front. Their expertise and dependability has us coming back every year for more native landscaping, burning, and weed removal.”

Kris Olsson

Ann Arbor Township Resident

“PlantWise has conducted burns for the Outdoor Discovery Center Macatawa Greenway since 2001. Their crew is very knowledgeable and always very professional. Our many properties pose challenges with boardwalks, buildings, wooded and aquatic habitats and they have always performed as promised – delivering safe and quality service. After 13 years of working with PlantWise we have seen a significant decline in invasive species on properties and an increase in native plant diversity. We highly recommend PlantWise as a quality resource for prescribed burning and habitat management.”

Travis Williams

Executive Director, Outdoor Discovery Center Macatawa Greenway

“The PlantWise team has been reliably and safely burning our 2.5 acres since the spring of 2000, and we couldn’t be happier. With their annual burning, periodic consultation, and native landscape expertise (and some of our own hard work!), our own landscape has progressed by leaps and bounds towards greater plant and animal diversity. The window for burning can open and close quickly due to weather, thus communication from the burn team is key, and in this regard Plantwise has always excelled. They are efficient, friendly, and professional. Highly recommended!”

Rob French

Dexter Resident