About DIY Nature
DIY Nature exists to help people reconnect with the natural world—starting right outside their own door.Your yard, balcony, school grounds, or neighborhood park isn’t just “green space.” It’s habitat. It’s part of a living ecosystem, whether you planned it that way or not.
DIY Nature is about noticing that system, understanding it, and learning how small, practical choices can make a real ecological difference—without turning your life into a full-time restoration project. This isn’t about perfection, pristine landscapes, or expensive solutions. It’s about curiosity, native plants, messy edges, overlooked insects, and learning how nature actually works—not just how it looks in landscaping catalogs.
What You’ll Find Here
DIY Nature creates science-backed, accessible resources for people who want to support wildlife where they live, including:
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Backyard ecology and wildlife education
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Native plants, insects, and food webs* Invasive species explained clearly (and honestly)
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Hands-on projects, kits, and field-guide style resources
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Short-form videos, long-form explainers, and practical how-tos
If it crawls, flies, photosynthesizes, decomposes, or quietly keeps your ecosystem running—it probably belongs here.
Who’s Behind DIY Nature?
DIY Nature is a one-woman operation, created and run by Amanda Ross—an environmental educator, master naturalist, and lifelong nature noticer.
Everything you see here—videos, writing, research, illustrations, kits, and curriculum-aligned resources—is created by a single human who genuinely cares about accuracy, accessibility, and ecological impact.
That means:
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No outsourced scripts
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No recycled clickbait facts
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No pretending nature is simple or tidy
Just careful research, field observation, and a lot of time spent translating science into something usable, engaging, and occasionally a little weird (because nature is weird).
Birding!
Why DIY Nature?
Because people are either obsessing over lawns while being sold unnecessary fertilizer and poison—or they’re genuinely trying to help their local environment and are being told they’re “doing everything wrong,” usually by someone with way more free time than they have.
Neither is helpful.
DIY Nature sits in the middle:
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You don’t need acres of land
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You don’t need to be an expert
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You do need good information and realistic options
Small, informed choices—planting natives, skipping pesticides, leaving leaves, noticing insects—scale up. When enough people do a little better, ecosystems respond.You’re not fixing the whole world. You’re fixing your piece of it.
A Note on Supporting Small
DIY Nature is an independent, small-scale project. When you read the blog, watch the videos, download resources, or purchase products, you’re supporting a small business and a lot of tiny, often overlooked creatures.
That support directly funds:
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New educational content
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Research time
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Free and low-cost resources for schools and families
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Ongoing learning and field work
The Goal
Connect with nature.
Restore your space.
Rewild your community.
Not perfectly. Just intentionally.
Using approaches that work long-term—for ecosystems and budgets.