Northern Lights Natural Landscaping
Northern Lights Natural Landscaping specializes in using native plants and natural materials to create and manage the development of ecological artscapes. We endeavor wherever possible, to preserve, restore or enhance biodiversity, habitats and existing natural features.
Our associated expertise includes botany, ecology, land management/stewardship, horticulture, arboriculture, carpentry, masonry and construction. Collaboration and ongoing education are both essential to our mission of providing comprehensive services. In addition to cultivating our in-house abilities, we work with a network of professional colleagues to provide well-coordinated single-source options for optimal project completion.
Paul Ryan grew up in a south-western Milwaukee suburb, and in the 1970s there were still undeveloped fields and forests around his home. He reflects, “I feel like I’ve retained a sense of wonder I initially experienced in those times and places that fuels and informs my passion for my work.”
Paul attended college at UW-Milwaukee, with initial explorations in Engineering and Architecture ultimately derailed by his interest in the Natural Sciences, earning a Bachelor of Science in Conservation Biology in the Spring of 1995.
While still at UWM, he became Land Manager of the Koenen Land Preserve (Milwaukee Quakers) and in 1997, he was also hired as Land Manager of the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center in Bayside, WI. Concurrently working independently with a growing number of new clients, in 2000 he decided to leave both of those positions to focus more exclusively on developing his contracting & consulting business.
Among the business’ earliest projects were the creation and development of ‘outdoor classrooms’ at both Indian Hill Elementary and Bayside Middle Schools. Working with groups of teachers, administration and interested parents, they developed living landscapes and associated programs to nurture children’s curiosity and creativity; and through the years, these prairie, wetland and woodland gardens have been dynamically integrated into those schools’ Science and Art curricula.
In 2005, the original business was sold to an employee, and Paul returned to school at UW-Madison to study Geography. During his years in Madison, Paul also worked for a Sun Prairie company specializing in hardscapes – acquiring more experience in customized patio, walkway and wall installations.
After grad-school, Paul returned to Milwaukee, gravitating back to his love of the land. He has been growing Northern Lights Natural Landscaping in and around south-eastern Wisconsin again since 2008.
In the mid-1990s, company founder Paul Ryan sought an apprenticeship with the ‘Godmother of Natural Landscaping’, Lorrie Otto. As he tells it, “She took me under her wing … and contributed substantially to the development of my core values and sensibilities.” They grew to become close friends and he served as the caretaker of her 2-acre legacy property in Bayside, WI beyond her 2010 death.
