Northwest Arkansas is growing fast. Roads, buildings, new developments — they're easy to notice, but some of the region's most important work happens much more quietly.
Ozarks at Large's Rhett Frazier takes us to some of those quieter spots to help us touch some grass.
Some of the most impactful work in the Ozarks goes on silently — in the dirt of a trail, the rush of a river, or the parks where people relax. With the fast-paced tempo of life today, it might be easy to take for granted these scenes. But there is real work and effort that goes into these outdoor spaces.
JB Portillo is a woman of many passions. After spending her career as a government contractor, she now finds herself in Bella Vista and helps lead the Benton County Master Gardeners. One spring day, she takes us on a walk through her own garden.
"So let's go over here and let's just get started."
There's a bright pink honeysuckle, a cactus that is native to Arkansas and marigolds that bloom before neighboring tomatoes to take care of diseases or insects that might infect the next-door plant.
"You know what these are? Now they're banana trees."
Really?
"Yes. Now, they don't produce bananas, but they get huge and they add texture to the yard."
Portillo is more than just a master gardener. She's also a master naturalist. A master gardener is focused on teaching and ensuring continued care for green spaces through connections with the university and churches and other organizations in the community.
"We teach people about how to raise vegetables, how to do plants.”
While the master naturalist, “they're master gardeners on steroids."
It's a broader service, focusing on things like trail health, weather patterns, containing invasive species and much more.
"We learn about frog calls and toad calls and birds and see the difference. It kind of is a graduated thing."
When you spend time with Portillo, it's clear to see how personal her love for her plants and the outdoors is. She doesn't just pick up a plant from Walmart because it looks pretty and she has space for it in her beds. No. Almost all of her plants in some way have a tie to a loved one or a memory.
"My grandmother loved iris. I think of Becky when I got those from Becky. I got that over there from Lisa. It's a favorite of ours because one of our dogs, Laney — it's the Laney tree, and we just named it after her because we want everybody to remember it forever. Zinnias — however you want to say them — they remind me of both of my grandmothers. This reminds me of walking down the street in Washington, D.C. That is a horseradish plant. My grandfather loved horseradish. There's that connection with your past."
This deeper connection is profound. There's no one lone gardener. Everyone shares. But this is more than just replanting greenery. Portillo says that just as an ecosystem is fully connected and fully equal, we are no different.
"It doesn't matter what you are, what your political thing is all about, what your religion is all about, whether you're a PhD or you're a plumber — when you get out there in those master naturalist groups and work with nature, everybody's equal. It's wonderful. And you don't talk about the stupidity of the world."
Craig Wenger is the maintenance manager for Bentonville Parks and Recreation. He shares a similar sentiment.
"We have people that have degrees in their field, and then we have others with high school diplomas to master's degrees in our department. We have some people that don't have any experience with maintaining lawn stuff, and then we have people that have been doing it their whole life. We're a pretty diverse group."
Parks and rec isn't always the flashiest work, but Craig and his team don't do it for fame. They love spending time in their own work as well. Emily Kroll, a horticulturist, views her work as art and loves to relax in a project that has taken months of hard work to complete.
"I take a lot of pride in what I do, and so when I do make a new landscape design or something like that, I get to see what it looks like and it's self-gratification for sure — just to be able to see something come to fruition and look at how pretty it is. And I get to enjoy it as well, and not just the public."
Wenger mentions the recently renovated Phillips Park. He says creating something that will last and bring others together is what it's all about for him.
"Just seeing all of those people out there and those kids enjoying it and knowing that we're leaving a legacy for their kids and their kids' kids to enjoy the spaces — that's where I get my motivation."
Portillo, again:
"You see how everything fits. There's no real separation. If there's a separation, it's not right. It's made up."
We all go about our lives very differently, whether we're working in a corporate environment or on the trails. But the thing is, just like a garden or a park, we are all connected. We all live on the same earth, in one big ecosystem.
One major takeaway from these stories: we are really no different from each other, and in some ways we all work and grow together. So let's take a moment today to go out and touch some grass.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
