About

Garza Ecological Services is owned and operated by myself, Nic Garza. I started working in conservation as a stewardship technician in northwest Indiana. After a few years of seasonal stewardship roles, I followed my interest in field botany and started working as a field botanist with various groups throughout the Midwest. In 2023, I started my own practice establishing and surveying vegetation monitoring plots for land trusts. Since then, I've completed a wide variety of monitoring and inventorying projects and hope to continue working with conservation organizations and landowners. 

Alongside my work as a field botanist and consultant, I am also the collections manager at the Indiana University Deam Herbarium, overseeing the processing and curation of over 170,000 vascular plant specimens. In addition, since 2020, I have co-operated Outlier Farmstead, a ~0.5 acre vegetable farm primarily providing produce to food banks and emergency food assistance programs.

I do all of these things in celebration of the power of plants! As the primary producers of our world, they can and will inform us of the infinitely complex happenings of the soil, water, and atmosphere with complete honesty. They are woven into the story of our own species in a fundamental way; without them, we are nothing! Without us, they will continue.