My Prairie Restoration Journey presentation
March 13 @ 6:30 PM - 7:45 PM
In this presentation, John Blair will bring you along on his journey to restore his land to original native prairie on his rural property in Brooklyn. He will also cover the restoration of his wooded savanna and how he is bringing three natural ponds back to life after being buried by farmers decades ago. Through John’s beautiful photos, you will get to see this wonderful transformation taking place, from hay fields back to lush native prairie habitat, much like what was originally there two hundred years ago!
Biography for John Blair
When John Blair retired from his automotive engineering job, he knew he would need something interesting to do with his time. He found it when he attended a presentation in the winter of 2012 by butterfly expert Brenda Dziedzic on making a butterfly garden with native plants as the focal point. John got busy that spring creating his own butterfly garden at his Westland home that over the next seven summers grew to over 5000 square feet in size with 130 species of native plants and 38 different species of butterfly visitors. In 2019, having filled all his available gardening space, John and his wife Sheri moved to a new home in rural Brooklyn, Michigan with about 9 acres of land that he is using to make even more butterfly and pollinator habitat through restoring large tracts of land to original prairie with native plants, creating a gigantic butterfly and pollinator habitat! John enjoys giving his inspirational talks and educational tours of his restoration to help others get started with their own pollinator habitats using native plants, which is something that means very much to him!
John’s garden has appeared in Fine Gardening magazine, Michigan Gardener, the Detroit Free Press and the Garden Answer YouTube channel. He has also authored articles for Michigan Gardener magazine on creating pollinator gardens. Over the last twelve years, John has given his “How to Make a Butterfly Garden” and “Prairie Restoration Journey” talks to county Master Gardener organizations, Michigan State University, Greenfield Village, numerous Michigan garden clubs, Church groups and Nature clubs throughout southeast and mid Michigan.