About Karen Prante

Karen has been a gardener her entire life, and cherishes fond memories of working in the family vegetable garden with her father in West Virginia as a child. As an adult, her gardening knowledge expanded and she learned about the essential and fascinating relationship between Monarch butterflies and Asclepias plants, and created a meadow at the elementary school her daughter attended. She became fascinated with the interconnectedness of nature and how much positive impact individual gardeners can have on nature and even climate change.

The creation of Asclepias Landscape was inspired, in part, by Karen’s admiration of a number of people, including the young Swedish climate advocate Greta Thunberg; Entomologist Douglas Tallamy, author of “Bringing Nature Home” and “Nature’s Best Hope”; nature writer and founder of HumaneGardener.com Nancy Lawson, and local native plant landscape designer Elisa Meara. All of these individuals have been outspoken on the urgent need to interact with our environment in a different way, nurturing instead of exploiting it, a philosophy Karen wholeheartedly espouses.

Karen puts her convictions to work as a volunteer with Fairfax County’s Invasive Management Area Program where she is a leader,  Virginia Master Naturalists, Earth Sangha, and as an Ambassador for the Audubon at Home program. Karen is credentialed as a Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional (CBLP) and is a member of the Virginia Native Plant Society.