Houston Chapter of the Native Prairies Association of Texas

Early Prairie Restoration Journey: Path to Native Grass and Forbs Propagation

“It felt like walking in a Monet painting and I’m going to have one!”, I had excitedly exclaimed to my husband Phil, after a walk in a remnant prairie during an NPAT tour guided by Tim Siegmund and Jason Singhurst in late April 2021. After completing the TMN training, joining NPAT, NPSOT and SCTPBA we decided to bring 25 acres back to prairie even though we are inexperienced landowners. Follow our challenges, which included flooded reseeded fields, and successes from late 2022 to our current 2nd season restoration. Adding more native grasses and forbs is part of our prairie management plan and propagation of the Big Four prairie grasses and forbs for our prairie has become a passion.

Swee Leng Rapatz has degrees from the University of New Brunswick, Canada in Geodesy & Geomatics Engineering and Business Administration. She started her career in digital mapping for the Maritime Provinces and moved to the DFW area to work on the Superconducting Super Collider Project. After the project was defunded, she moved to Houston and managed enterprise HR and financial databases for various corporations and is now retired after owning a small business. Swee Leng spends some of her time volunteering as VP for the Texas Master Naturalist – GLC and collecting/sharing seeds and propagating native grasses and forbs for her prairie restoration.