The Tallamys’ Place

When entomologist Doug Tallamy and his wife, Cindy, moved to their 10 acres in Oxford, Pennsylvania, in 2000, there wasn't much resembling the landscape that surrounds their home today.

The land had been farmed for nearly 300 years and most recently mowed for hay. After mowing stopped, invasive plants including multiflora rose, oriental bittersweet and honeysuckle surged back. Within a few years, some areas were so dense the Tallamys had to cut paths simply to walk through them.

Today, much of that same land has become young eastern deciduous forest.

Oaks and hickories rise where hay once grew. Wood thrushes have nested there. Wood frogs have found a pond dug decades ago. And Tallamy has photographed 1,385 species of moths on the property, alongside 62 bird species that have successfully bred there.

For someone who has spent much of his career arguing that the places where we live can support far more life, the transformation has become a long-running experiment right outside his door.

It started with what wasn't there

When the Tallamys arrived, the property looked green. But as an entomologist, Doug was interested in what was living on that greenery and he found surprisingly little.

The vegetation that had taken over much of the property had originated elsewhere, and many of the local insects Tallamy was accustomed to looking for weren't using it. That observation helped lead him toward the questions that would shape decades of research into relationships among native plants, insects and the animals that depend on them.

So Doug and Cindy began removing invasives and putting native plants back. Not all at once or according to a finished master plan, and not entirely by themselves.

The blue jays had a planting plan too

One of the recurring lessons of the Tallamy property is how much can happen when people make room for ecological processes to resume.

After invasive shrubs were removed, young native trees began appearing.

Some came from seeds already waiting in the soil. Others arrived courtesy of wildlife. Blue jays carried in acorns. Squirrels moved hickory nuts and walnuts. Deer dispersed persimmon seeds.

Doug planted plenty himself, especially oaks. But over time, he realized that restoration could be as much about removing obstacles as installing plants.

What emerged is less a conventional garden than a collection of overlapping habitats. The Smithsonian's Archives of American Gardens describes meadow, wetlands and young woodland at the Tallamy’s Place, with native trees, shrubs and wildflowers creating multiple layers of vegetation. 

“Watching nature repair itself on our property has convinced me that similar restorations are possible in cities, suburbs, and exurban spaces everywhere. And the more people who encourage nature’s resilience at home, the faster it will occur on new properties.  “

Twenty-six years later, things are still showing up

Tallamy measures the property's recovery in life.

He photographs the moth species he encounters and records birds that successfully breed there. As of September 2026, his moth list had reached 1,393 species, with approximately 25 new species added this year alone. Sixty-two bird species have successfully bred there.

Some arrivals come quickly. Others require patience.

In 2024, wood frogs bred for the first time in a small pond Tallamy had dug more than two decades earlier. Wood thrushes, birds associated with forest habitat, now breed on land that was open hayfield when the Tallamys arrived.

A declining moth called Thaxter's sallow (Psaphida thaxterianus) has appeared. Luna moths have become regular visitors. And despite years of watching and recording, Tallamy continues to find species he has never documented there before. 

The point isn't simply that the number is large. It's that the number is still changing.

Even a successful restoration doesn't stand still

Twenty-six years of growth have created a very different set of challenges from the ones the Tallamys faced in 2000.

Trees that began as acorns now tower overhead. As the canopy has expanded, the property has changed in ways even Doug didn't anticipate.

“When I started, my goal was to put plants that had been absent for 300 years back on the property. But they all grew faster than I thought they would, and I have lost direct sunlight on much of the property. So now I manage for light rather than plants. Who knew that would happen??” Doug says.

It's a useful reminder that a thriving Place isn't a finished project.

Plants grow. Shade moves. Wildlife arrives. What works in one decade may need adjusting in the next.

The property itself keeps teaching.

A white oak from an acorn

Few plants are more closely associated with Tallamy's work than oaks, and some of his best examples are growing outside his own house.

He began planting white oak acorns around 2001. Within roughly two decades, trees that began as seeds had grown dozens of feet tall. Today, he says many of the oaks he planted from acorns have passed 60 feet.They are not simply impressive trees. Oaks support extraordinarily complex communities of caterpillars and other organisms, which is why Tallamy has spent years encouraging people to make room for them.

At his own Place, that relationship can be watched in real time.

What 10 acres can teach a quarter acre

Not everyone has 10 acres. But the lessons of the Tallamys' restoration extend well beyond their property lines.

“Watching nature repair itself on our property has convinced me that similar restorations are possible in cities, suburbs, and exurban spaces everywhere. And the more people who encourage nature’s resilience at home, the faster it will occur on new properties,” Doug says.

That conviction is at the heart of Bringing Nature Home and the Homegrown National Park movement: the places where we live can become part of the solution to biodiversity loss.

A quarter-acre lot connects to another quarter-acre lot. A school connects to the properties around it. Even a small planting can offer food or habitat for wildlife moving through a neighborhood.

The scale changes. The principle doesn't.

Twenty-six years after Doug and Cindy Tallamy began putting native plants back, their former hayfield is still becoming something else.

And new life is still finding it.