Less Lawn More Life. For Eva.
My sister, my garden, and why I do this
Hello, Yardeners!
It’s Zoe, Heather’s daughter, and I’m jumping in to wish you HAPPY EARTH DAY and share something personal. (Don’t worry—my mom will be back next week with her regularly scheduled column!)
As some of you know, I manage the Less Lawn More Life challenge: a free 12-week program helping people turn everyday yards into real habitat. It’s all new this year— new experts, new resources, new tools. It starts May 7 with a live kickoff featuring Robin Wall Kimmerer(!), followed by one simple, expert-guided action each week.
Even if you don’t have a lawn—you have a balcony or live in the woods—you can add more life to your property.
If you do one thing this Earth Day, let it be to go outside and look at some nature. If you do two things, let it be to ask a friend to do the Less Lawn More Life challenge with you!
If you take the challenge, you’ll get a Wildr Score (basically a land health checkup), weekly challenges to help improve it, and a community of people doing this work right alongside you. Whether you’re new to habitat gardening or a long time rewilder, there is something new to learn for everyone. Even if you took it last year, the content is completely revamped—and this year you’ll also be the very first people to use a brand new tool I’ve helped build called Wildr Places. (More on that below.)
All of this work is rooted in something deeply personal to me: my sister Eva, who died two years ago, and what her death taught me about how intertwined we are with nature. How new life can come out of grief, even when someone you love is gone forever. I wrote it all down below.
Thanks, as always, for being on this wild ride with us,
—Zoe
For Eva
Turning loss into something that grows
Sunday was the anniversary of my sister Eva’s death. Those of you who have been with us for two years may remember my mom’s post about it.
That May, my sisters and mom and I planted an Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis) with her ashes in my backyard in ceremony. Today, her tree is blooming in full force on the anniversary of her death. When I look at its tiny flowers, I see life, grief, the complexity of humanness in its little pink buds. My sister is gone, but caring for her tree gives me purpose. She feeds the bees, she holds the water, she’s found new life. And for me this is a way to remember all the ways Eva is still with me.
My mom named us well. Eva means life in Hebrew. Zoe means life in Greek.
We are life.
We are not separate from nature, we are nature. And remembering that has been such a wellspring of energy for me since she died.
Grief, dirt, purpose
Before Eva died, I was just starting to learn what land could be. Mom and I had built “Transform Your Yard,” our first course together—14 weeks of teaching people to design yards they love.
A week before the course wrapped, my sister died unexpectedly.
My garden became something different for me after that. First, a place to weed with abandon while I worked through rage and sorrow and confusion. My family did a ceremony to plant a tree for Eva. My sisters Lila and Sofi, my mom, and I held her ashes in our bare hands and put them in the hole in the earth, burning wish paper as we sent our prayers out. We planted the redbud tree together in my backyard and filled the hole back up with soil, adding water. I had to care for it (and the hundreds of other plants I planted that summer).
Later that year I turned all my energy and lack of agency over her death into more things I can actually do. Things that fill my cup and give me purpose and remind me we are not alone. I guess I tried to transform her death into more ways to bring life into the world.
Little did I know that just a couple years later, mom and I would be name-dropped by Margaret Roach in her interview with Becca Rodomsky-Bish, alongside native plant champions like Doug Tallamy and Benjamin Vogt. Or that I would be designing the very tools I wished existed so more people could do this thing I love. I wish Eva was here so I could tell her all my updates until she shouted at me “no more native plant talk!!”
What I told Eva as I planted
Eva and I both cared deeply about making a positive impact on this world. She told deep stories through film and humor. I try to find ways to make a difference on our land and in our local communities. We were both so, so proud of each other. And the way Eva would proudly tell people about things her older sister was doing… I carry that with me.
This year, I planted 100 tree and shrub seedlings around my yard on the second anniversary of Eva’s death. Adding to my memorial garden, our shared legacy.
And as I planted, I told Eva things that I’m proud of.
Digging in the dirt, I caught her up. Since she died, I got my master naturalist certification from Cornell. I started a coalition to protect my local creek from wastewater pollution and joined my local watershed community’s leadership team. I founded an ecological hunting alliance to protect our forests. I taught tens of thousands of people to design outdoor spaces with my mom, and we just submitted a book proposal to our agent.
I told her how I met Joanna Hall and the Plan it Wild team who founded Less Lawn More Life and Wildr, and how we’re building something together now that’s bigger than any of us. How I helped develop a science-based methodology to recommend native plants and presented it to Doug Tallamy and other heroes of mine. How I've helped build an app so more people can discover the magic of bringing life to their yard. How many incredible partners and individuals we talk with every day, and the way it's all growing together like a mycelial web. Every day it feels like the universe needs it to happen.
And how in two weeks, I’ll be moderating a Q&A with Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Plant something for someone you love
Last year I was just helping with Less Lawn More Life. This year I’m leading it, and we’ve totally revamped the content! (And I’m super excited because we’ve added a whole challenge around water conservation & protection this year.)
Twelve weeks, weekly challenges with free resources, webinars with experts.
If you do one thing, just read each email.
Two things, plant something native for someone you miss.
Three things, notice a new bird or bug.
And maybe it’ll change your life like it changed mine. At minimum, you’ll have some smiles and fun. (Eva was the most New York City it girl you could imagine. Shovels, no way. But fireflies? We loved those as kids, and you can even find them—and support them!—in the middle of the East Village.)
What grows from here
The new tool, Wildr Places, is in beta. We’re building it into a personalized native plant and habitat guide for your specific yard, and we’ll grow into that vision with your help.
The plants it recommends aren’t random. They’re the ones that specialist bees, butterflies, and moths depend on—species that are disappearing because the specific plants they need are disappearing too. When you plant them, you’re giving those struggling beings a chance.
In the app, you can see the species in my memorial garden for Eva. I hope it inspires you to plant something for someone you love.
And you don’t need a yard to do this. A single pot on a balcony counts. Less Lawn More Life is just a way of saying: wherever you are, make more life.
This work changed my life. Not just the challenge, but everything about restoring nature and nurturing struggling species and watching the life we can steward. It’s about agency. Being able to do something in my own backyard when so much feels out of my control. It’s about beauty and design, and creating a place that pulls me outside into the sun so I feel the breeze on my face and remember why I do this.
Eva’s tree is blooming right now. I think she’s proud of me.
P.S. We're not doing this alone. Less Lawn More Life is a grassroots campaign now backed by a whole crew of habitat heroes and conservation orgs, with more joining every day.
What an absolutely beautiful essay. I am sorry about the loss of your sister, yet feel certain she would be pleased by the way you are remembering her. And you are so wise. When things seem out of control, we do the good that we can. I love it.