Dell Medical School green roof designed by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. PHOTO Adam Barbe

The ecological design services offered by the Wildflower Center will now be available through a private practice established by members of its successful consulting department.

Since 2000, the Center’s consulting arm has extended the its reach by providing expertise in sustainable, ecosystem-based landscape approaches to public and private projects. The program has impacted more than 90,000 acres of primarily Texas landscapes through its work on framework plans, ecological landscape design, landscape restoration and ecological site assessments.

Notable projects include the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Houston Arboretum & Nature Center, Gathering Place in Tulsa, and Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas.

The consulting program grew out of the Landscape Restoration Program which was established in 1999. It operated as the Ecosystem Design Group from 2010 to 2016, where it continued to gain a national reputation for its research-based approach to native plants and landscape design. Most recently the program was housed within the Center’s Department of Ecological Research and Design.

The newly independent Ecosystem Design Group joins several innovative programs and products launched by the Wildflower Center throughout its history, including the SITES® rating system (the world standard for rating sustainable landscapes now managed by GBCI), Habiturf® native grass seed mix, and SkySystem™ green roof growing media.