Greening Solutions- Bringing your land back to its roots.
We know as well as anyone that maintaining land comes with challenges. As a nonprofit organization, Great River Greening (Greening) has restored and sustainably managed tens of thousands of acres in our 30 years of existence, due in no small part to our team of expert ecologists and technicians, our arsenal of tools, and our science-led, data-driven methods. We’ve worked alongside tens of thousands of volunteers, restoring public land for the public good and creating a natural legacy for future generations.
However, not all lands or projects fit our nonprofit model, and many private and commercially owned lands have great potential for restoration. That’s why we created Greening Solutions— our full-service, fee-based division designed to deliver practical solutions for sustainable land stewardship throughout Minnesota.
Above (before): A Greening Solutions crew member conducts a prescribed burn as part of the restoration process at Oheyawahi.
Below (after): Restored Oheyawahi pollinator prairie in bloom.
You Help Us When We Help You.
At Greening, we’re able to work across the state thanks in large part to federal and state grants, and the generosity of our donors and partners. This means we’re able to work with schools, cities, counties, and communities to offer ecosystem services on public lands. But we don’t stop there. Greening Solutions, our fee-for-service model, creates an opportunity to extend the reach of our restoration work, allowing us to work directly with land owners, regardless of state or federal funding. It’s the same mission-based work— using nature-based climate solutions to restore native landscapes and improve habitats. But, in this case, we’re working directly with landowners to deliver contracted restoration services. The other benefit of hiring Greening? The proceeds from these projects directly support our conservation work, volunteer engagement, and youth environmental education across our state.
A Greening Solutions custom rain garden in Prior Lake, designed to improve water quality by filtering stormwater runoff through roots of native plants.
Green Solutions for All
Native habitats aren’t just better for the land, water, and animals, they can drastically cut maintenance costs, time, and effort. Whether it’s an overlooked strip of turf or an overgrown pocket of woodland, transforming these undervalued lands into healthy, resilient natural areas creates a lasting impact. From smaller projects like custom rain gardens and pollinator lawns to broader scale prairie and forest restoration work, our team works with landowners to develop landscape-specific, actionable natural resource management plans with long-term objectives. Once on site, our team will work beside you to map the site, assess vegetation, look at historic property records, and utilize new climate model data to predict a resilient landscape for the future, scaling out climate-adaptive management strategies over a 5-10 year period.
In other terms, our team works holistically to deliver a plan specific to your land— a plan that’s made to last.
Before (left) and after (right) invasive species removal at Talahi Woods.
Part of the Climate Solution
By working one-on-one with landowners, Greening Solutions brings expertise, dedication, and innovation to all land mangers. This opportunity to work with our ecologists to determine the unique challenges on your land allows our work to reach new areas and to create further support for Greening’s other projects. Whether you’re starting with a blank slate or dense and wild overgrowth, Greening Solutions’ customized land restoration plans support your landscape management goals while supporting a greener Minnesota— in your backyard and beyond.
Questions about customized land restoration solutions? Learn more about Greening Solutions and how we can work together.