Grow your idea, transform your land, regenerate life

Join our 6-week online design course:

Bring Your Land to Life

Learn our process to envision and implement the transformation of your own or a community landscape.

Create your own Regeneration Action Plan.

Course Topics

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Site and ecosystem mapping 
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Soil regeneration and remediation 
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Carbon farming and sequestration
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Kitchen gardening and edible landscaping

Rainwater harvesting and stormwater design

Ecological thinking and ecosystem restoration

Native plant identification and invasives management

Habitat creation for birds, pollinators, and other wildlife

Course Overview

Bring Your Land to Life is a cohort-based course where you will cultivate the knowledge, skills, mindset, and habits you need to successfully implement regenerative land practices. You will become an eco-visionary who knows how to confidently transform you land into a life-giving landscape.

Each class session will start with a lecture and discussion based on the previous week’s reading. In the second half of each session, we will workshop our practical design assignments and learn a new skill to apply to the next week’s assignment.

Learning Outcomes

Hone observation skills and conduct citizen science

Conduct a site inventory & analyze site features

Learn to read your landscape to understand how water moves

Create bioregional, ecosystem, & site maps for your place

Learn native plants for your bioregion & create a locally specific plant pallette for your landscape

Generate a tangible, actionable, vision for your landscape

Communicate your ideas with sketches, photos, & narrative

Create your own Regeneration Action Plan

Bring Your Land to Life is for creative people who want to make a tangible difference in the world around them.

Students include green thumbs needing a plan to guide their gardening, environmentalists looking to learn hands-on skills, landowners hoping to regenerate their property, parents wanting a healthier, more nature-based play environment for their children, foodies seeking to grow more of your own food.

Who is this course for?

Course Details

This is an online, regenerative design course

The course meets live on Monday evenings, 7-9pm EST

Class meetings on 2/20, 2/27, 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 3/27

Brilliant guest teachers in every class session

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Small class size
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Practical weekly assignments for every skill level

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Detailed feedback on projects
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One-on-one design review / site consultation for your land

Cost: Introductory beta course rate of $350

“Kristen has one of the most interactive ways of teaching!”

“Your teaching pushed us to be confident in ourselves.”

“Kristen fosters a supportive learning environment that celebrates each student’s individual strengths and interests. She creates a safe space for us to think critically and grow our creative courage. In each class, she strikes a balance between sharing big ideas, deep dives into case studies, and the cultivation of practical skills.”

An avid urban gardener, Kristen Ford Haaf has been growing regenerative landscapes for most of her life, practicing formally as an ecological designer for over two decades.

With a background in ecology, permaculture, landscape architecture, city planning - and a childhood growing up around the family flower business - Kristen has synthesized her own unique approach to the repair and regeneration of all types of landscapes.

Kristen taught for many years at Wake Forest University and Temple University, making the eco-design process accessible to undergraduate students of all backgrounds. She’s also taught regenerative skills outside the classroom in gardens, forests, and eco-cities, from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to Ecuador. Kristen now brings this knowledge and experience to our community courses at Roots First.

Teaching Experience & Philosophy

Join our next course cohort!

If you’ve been wanting to regenerate your home landscape or transform a place in your community, join our Early Spring cohort to get your plans ready in time for spring planting.

Questions? Send us a note at hello@rootsfirst.com