Our Urban Landscapes
In 2020, we launched our own urban landscaping design and operating arm. This new work area was inspired by our team’s work planting several streetscapes on Larimer Square and working with outside landscaping companies to do this during the spring of 2019. During this experience, we learn how extractive most urban landscaping operations are. Most conventional landscaping plans consist of expensive, short-lived annuals that are typically grown in energy intensive greenhouses or in far-away tropical regions of the world. These annuals are then planted multiple times throughout the growing season and thrown away between each cycle – adding excessive methane gas to the atmosphere through their decomposition process. Beyond the extractive environmental implications of such landscaping practices, this type of planting regime requires considerable labor to install, excess resources to maintain, and is not ecologically or biologically reflective.
Our team realized that if we want to change the way that urban spaces are planted and cared for, that we need to lead by doing it ourselves. Now, instead of replanting the same streetscape multiple times a year, we are designing and cultivating regenerative, perennial, native-based landscapes. Short-lived annuals are replaced with long-lived perennials, requiring less water, less labor, and fewer resources. When we align our planting plans with the ecology of place, we reduce the volume of plants needed for purchase, the overall labor budget, and total operating costs from year-to-year.
We truly believe that all design should be rooted in the natural world, reflective of ecological processes, and inspired by biological principles. If we can take these practices to scale and truly reimagine how we plant our cities, we can have a transformative impact on our urban landscapes and the planet as a whole. In 2021, we are asking ourselves how we can expand this work and we are exploring pilot projects on a larger scale. If you have ideas of communities who you think would benefit from this work, please let us know!
2020 Larimer Square Urban Landscaping Case Study
40% annual reduction in landscaping cost per square foot
Saved 47% more water than the previous year on Larimer Square by switching from a non-native, annual planting plan to a primarily native, perennial planting plan
Planted over 2,500 individual plants; around 1,000 are native to CO and the rest naturalized (which means that although these plants are not native, that they are appropriate to Colorado’s current climate, soil, and water resources)
2020 Larimer Uprooted Rooftop Urban Farm
Donated over 1,000 lbs of fruits and vegetables to local food banks, including the Growhaus, Bienvenidos Food Bank, and the Slow Food Denver Cooking Class (as part of their youth education programs)
Planted over 2,500 square feet of growing space
Hosted ~ 70 COVID-safe outdoor events which included everything from private intimate weddings to socially-distant yoga classes
Our Agriculture Working Landscapes
Human health is intrinsically linked to our planet’s resources. The ability for humanity to adapt and overcome the current pandemic, and the inevitable ones to come, balance on our collective access to such resources. Throughout our country, the health of our ranches, rangelands, forests, wetlands and open space are tied to the health of our human communities, both rural and urban. It’s those working landscapes that filter, clean and hold our water. It’s those working landscapes that provide us with food, fiber, recreation and cultural benefits.
At Bio-Logical Capital, we continue to focus a lot of our time and effort on how we build healthy relationships between our landscapes (and the resources that we take from those landscapes) and our human settlements.
Through projects and communities that we have been in for many years (from Hana Ranch on Maui to Philo Ridge Farm in Vermont), to new projects and landscapes (from a million-acre sheep ranching operation in Idaho, to 10,000 acres in South Carolina, to farming and food operations in Colorado and the northeast), we are working to create healthy and successful business models.
Conservation Innovation Grant
Our team partnered with the Vermont Land Trust and the University of Vermont to submit a grant proposal for a five-year Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) to advance soil health and support farmer livelihoods in Vermont by implementing and evaluating the outcomes of regenerative agriculture. We recently received the news that we were awarded this grant, and the project will launch in January!
The $2,300,000 award from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) funds technical support and incentive payments for a cohort of 20 farmers to implement soil health management practices using a four-part soil health management system.
Comprehensive field data will be collected for five years to understand the ecological, economic, and social outcomes of adopting and maintaining soil health practices. We will correlate the multi-year series of field data with satellite and remote sensed imagery to build an empirical machine learning model that predicts the outcomes of adopting the studied farming practices across the Vermont farm landscape.
Philo Ridge Farm
Philo Ridge Farm, located in Vermont, is one of our legacy management projects. A diverse agriculture and hospitality operation-- this business (like so many others) got hit hard by COVID. This past spring, instead of gearing up for a busy summer, we were winding down operations and quickly pivoting to an online market with curbside pickup. We have been able to maintain consistent operations and recently expanded into dinner service. Production on the farm continued to grow: 62 lambs and 13 calves were born on the farm; we doubled the number of layers, producing over 48,000 eggs; and we spread over 500 cubic yards of farm-grown compost on our pastures. We built a poultry processing facility, which now allows us to harvest our chickens and turkeys right on the farm. In the Market Garden, we grew over 130 varieties of fruits and vegetables, and in partnership with UVM, tested out new cover crop mixes designed to reduce compaction and increase fertility. We grow over 26 species of grasses, legumes, and forbes in our pastures. These include grasses such as perennial rye, meadow fescue, and smooth brome grass; legumes such as red clover, alfalfa, and winter peas; and forbes such as forage chicory, plantain, and forage radish.
Hana Ranch
Hana Ranch is another one of our legacy management projects. A working cattle ranch on Maui, Hawaii, Hana Ranch manages a rotationally-grazed herd of 1,500 cattle over 3,600 acres. 2020 was the first year that our silvopasture sequenced into our cow/calf herd grazing rotation. Now the cattle graze through the mature breadfruit orchard. As a partner ranch of Maui Cattle Company, in February we completed the construction of the new slaughter facility at Pu'unene and put it into service. The first Hana Ranch cattle that went into the (grass-fed, grass-finished) program at Kulolio Ranch were slaughtered at the new facility and marketed through Maui Cattle Company. This facility investment helps the long term security (and expansion) of the island of Maui's food system, specifically for cattle ranching and pasture management operations. Additionally, we announced a partnership with the University of Hawaii’s Maui Food Innovation Center as part of a program to process and market breadfruit ('ulu) grown in Hana.
We asked our team to share a photo and a caption that speaks to their 2020 experience. Here’s what they had to say…
Gaelen
This year offered the opportunity, and at times even forced, introspection and lots of time with those we have chosen to live closest with. I like to think we can come away from 2020 feeling more connected and appreciative of others, wether we were stuck inside with them, or stuck a continent away from them. I know my few experiences seeing others and getting outside, like our road trip to Boston to see my partner’s mother, which included a trip to Walden Pond, have been that much more special and valued.
Jacob
My last “normal” experience in 2020 was attending a performance of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical. In retrospect, I couldn’t have scripted a more fitting beginning to the nine months that would follow; a period marked by turmoil and confused noise. Against all odds, this is the cultural event that has sustained me through 2020. Seen here, my youngest brother thoroughly enjoying himself (and his un-pictured gin + tonic), blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.
Tad
I unsuspectingly moved from Vermont to Colorado in the middle of February – leaving a state where I lived much of my life for one where I had few connections to people or place outside our close-knit team. Instead of traveling to visit our projects or see friends around the country, I got to know my new backyard in Colorado. And what a back yard it is: this photo is on Rollins Pass during an ambitious mountain bike ride from Boulder over the continental divide. The simple rock structure in the foreground was built by Paleoindians at least 10,000 years ago - part of a hunting strategy to drive large game up and over the narrow pinch point of the pass. I’m humbled each time I cross this wild landscape where humans have thrived for eons; grateful for solid ground in a dislocated year. In the words of my friend and spirit guide to the world of Colorado mountain biking, “The charge up there is MEGA!”.
Lilly
For me, 2020 has been defined by the tension between the opposing sides of unexpected dichotomies centering around the big events: COVID, work, and being a new mom. It has been the happiest year of my life and the toughest; I became a mom to Baxter and lost much of my independent self. Connection to my family is stronger, yet strained by distance. Motherhood is innately simple while being endlessly complex. I have been physically separated from my community but have seen more loved ones virtually than I normally would. At work I read scientific papers and analyze data, at home I read Goodnight Moon and try to understand the world through the eyes of my child. It’s been the most complicated year of logistics and precautions and a deafening news cycle, yet with this new baby, it’s also in its own way the simplest, most joyful, and certainly, the most unforgettable.
Meriwether
I love working with people and engaging directly in the landscapes that they work with, it's one of my favorite parts of my job. During 2020, we did not get to be in person very often, and therefore the week that several team members and I spent with Lava Lake Lamb, a working ranch and conservation project in Carey, Idaho, was a highlight of the year for me. I’m pictured here with one of the sheep guard dogs.
Kristen
This year my sister moved to Colorado. She is a long distance runner, and I recently picked up biking, so we spent a lot of time together exploring local trails in our backyard!
Morgan
This year was a tough one. It was unlike any that I have ever experienced before and came with some pretty big challenges. For me, it required having patience, embracing compromise and holding space for empathy as my default approach to each day. The year also presented opportunities for growth and encouraged a lot of evolution for me, and also our team and company. I am proud of us! One thing that this year did not frequently offer up to me were moments of solitude in the woods and the space that they hold for quiet, calm thinking and being. So I am sharing a picture from an adventure that I had this summer in the Olympic Mountains of the Pacific Northwest. To get to this little waterfall, I rode for a long while up a dirt road, which eventually turned into singletrack and finally dropped me off at the edge of this pool. I jumped in (and back out quickly! it was really cold) and then sat there for a moment and listened to the water coming down off the rocks. Looking back at this now, I bet that little ride and swim played a big part in helping me keep my balance through the second half of the year. So here's to more time out in the mountains, talking with the trees in 2021.
Olivia
2020 was really hard for so many reasons. In the moments of hardship— I found comfort in routines, reading, getting a second rescue dog (meet Frankie on the left!), long walks, puzzles, cooking, playing cribbage with my husband, Peloton, opening some really nice bottles of wine and cider, and rest. Lots of rest.
