ABOUT TAPROOT NATIVE DESIGN
Our Mission
A taproot is a main root that descends downward into the earth. The taproot creates stability for plants while the lateral roots that grow outward supply sustenance.
As the definition implies, our mission is to connect people with the earth. This connection stabilizes and nurtures us throughout our lives so that we may express our love of wild beings and wild places through celebration, conservation and restoration.
Taproot Native Design LLC is an ecologically based consulting and landscape design firm that practices habitat restoration. We offer an alternative approach to how property owners manage their land, one that is fundamentally sustainable, infinitely more diverse and ultimately more fulfilling.
What is Habitat Restoration?
Habitat Restoration is the process of assisting and managing the recovery of ecological health and diversity to the land.
The suburbanization of our landscapes has created a situation of homelessness for many of our native plants and wildlife. On a subliminal level, if not a conscious level, humans have also been displaced for we too resonate to the call of the wild.
There is a real need for us to re-inhabit the places we call home, to become intimate with the wild inhabitants of our places, to name them and know them. Habitat restoration allows us to reclaim our sense of place.
Jessie Benjamin
Jessie L. Benjamin is founder and principal of Taproot Native Design, LLC. She lives with her family in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jessie is passionate about the preservation and restoration of the natural landscape and she has been a student of nature for as long as she can remember.
In addition to the design and installation of natural habitats; Jessie has authored a native plant ordinance, co-authored a stream assessment ordinance and assisted with a natural resource protection ordinance and stormwater wetlands construction document. She routinely works with developers, engineers and landscape architects to provide them with planting and vegetation management solutions. She has written plans for and overseen the installation of over 20,000 trees for a landowner in northern Delaware. Jessie recently co-authored the Reforestation Plan for the White Clay Creek Watershed Pennsylvania Portion. She also co-teaches a course at Longwood Gardens called “Healthy Habitats.”
Jessie administered the Riparian Forest Buffer Program for the Stroud Water Research Center. She served on the Christina Basin Tributary Action Team and on the Planning Commission for London Grove Township. Jessie was the Pennsylvania Co-Chair of the White Clay Wild & Scenic River Committee. She is a long time member of the Society for Ecological Restoration, as well as, a sustaining member of the Orion Society.