In celebration of MNL\’s 20th year in business, we are looking back at just how far things have come. 1998 was the year, at a hobby farm in Foley, MN where Minnesota Native Landscapes began it\’s work in the ecological restoration field. MNL started out with two employees, the owners: Joe Schaffer and Paul Jackson. These entrepreneurs focused their efforts on small and large scale projects for private landowners, corporations, and the Minnesota SNA (Scientific and Natural Area) program. A notable early project was a large corporate campus for another Minnesota based company, Anderson Windows, at their Renewal by Anderson office in Cottage Grove. Fast forward 20 years later, MNL is still owned by Joe Schaffer along with his wife, and MNL President, Amy; and we are still managing that prairie at Renewal by Anderson (it looks great by the way…). Our main office is now located in Otsego, MN where a small herd of bison graze the surrounding prairie. The small farm where MNL began is still the home of MNL\’s production division with some of our originally sourced seeds from Schaefer prairie near Glenwood still in production. Our native seed and plant production capabilities have expanded drastically since then, and so have our service offerings – with work ranging from plug planting and prescribed burning to bio-engineering and riverbank reconstruction. Our staff has grown from 2 employees to nearly 102, and we expect that growth to continue. We are so thankful for the opportunities we\’ve had in the past 20 years to expand native plantings across the state.
