“Mr. Norris sees the new botanical garden as the place to demonstrate that horticulture is culture.”
—The New York Times
Kelly has a motto:
Just keep planting.
In our own way and time, planting is one of the most important actions we can take to cultivate greater abundance and complexity in the landscapes we call home.
Kelly is on a mission to plant the world, to make places beautiful and ecologically vibrant. His award-winning planting studio brings life to residential, commercial, and public landscapes across North America.
Profile
Kelly D. Norris is one of the leading ecological horticulturists of his generation. In his practice, he explores the narrative of place through site-specific plantings and landscape interventions. His work grows from the intersection of horticulture, field ecology, and botany.
An award-winning author and plantsman, Kelly’s work in gardens has been featured in The New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Fine Gardening, Garden Design, and numerous television, radio, and digital media appearances. His latest book is Your Natural Garden, published in 2025 by Cool Springs Press.
Kelly’s eponymous design studio works in public and private places across North America. The studio annually produces the New Naturalism Academy, a virtual school for enthusiastic designers, as part of its commitment to continuing education and lifelong learning. He’s also the founder and curator of The Public Horticulture Company, an ecological landscape stewardship company based in Des Moines, Iowa.
He is the former director of horticulture and education at the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, where he led design, curation, programming, garden, and facility management for eight years and served as the owner’s representative on nearly $20 million in capital projects.
Kelly travels widely to explore and study plants in nature. He lives and works at Three Oaks Garden (Des Moines, Iowa), a creative refuge and planting field on a hill above the Des Moines River.
Team
Kimberly James is an accomplished horticulturist and educator with over 30 years of experience in public and commercial horticulture.
She has worked at Longwood Gardens, South Dakota State University, and Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, among other notable institutions. As horticulture manager, she specializes in procurement, logistics, and inventory management. In the field, she spearheads onsite nursery management and assists with design layout. Kimberly also serves as moderator and customer support for the New Naturalism Academy.
Natalie Ross is a registered landscape architect and project manager with a wide-ranging background in the design industry.
After earning a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Minnesota, Natalie worked in Seattle designing and managing the construction of campus landscapes such as the award-winning Amazon headquarters. Natalie moved back to the Midwest to start her own landscape architecture studio, marrying her experience managing complex projects with a more naturalistic approach to design.