Looking for inspiration in your own backyard?
Homegrown National Park invites you to play Living Lens, our new experience that encourages you to pause, explore, and engage with photographs of yards, gardens, and wild places where biodiversity is taking root. Your conversation will be guided by “Carson”, while interacting with other HNP community members.
Every transformation begins with a new perspective.
Observe
Connect
Restore
For support, please contact ContemPlay
Why Play Living Lens?
Observe
Take a moment to tune in to the function and beauty of native habitats
Slow down and let your eyes wander
Connect
Look and share observations between community members
An opportunity to wonder for all levels of expertise
Restore
Train your eye to see restoration opportunities in your neighborhood
Spark imagination and action with practical ideas
How Living Lens Works
Have a discussion with Carson, our conversation guide to share what you notice.
Tap 
to explore reflections from other players and discover how looking together opens up new understandings.
Click 
to share the image and play with friends!
More Ways to Engage With Living Lens
Contribute Photos to Living Lens
Show us what’s happening outside your door or in your community. Your photos will spark inspiration for anyone looking to create their own Homegrown National Park.
By sharing your landscape, you’re helping more people see what’s possible — and contributing to a growing library of real places where biodiversity is returning. Your photo may also be featured as part of a guided Living Lens experience, with full attribution.
We need clear, high resolution pictures that allow users to explore not only the native habitat but its surroundings. Optionally, send us a close up of something you found interesting within that habitat.
Images that work especially well often include signs of life and change — wildlife in motion, seasonal shifts, human care, or before-and-after transformation.
In Partnership With Contemplay
Homegrown National Park is rooted in restoring nature where people live. This begins with how we see the living world around us.
ContemPlay helps people build a personal, attentive relationship with all kinds of content, from art to design to landscapes and much more. ContemPlay believes that when people slow down and notice more, care becomes more natural. And when care feels personal, change becomes possible.
Together, Homegrown National Park and ContemPlay invite reflection and create space for curiosity, confidence, and connection to grow.
What Our Friends are Saying
“It changed how I read a landscape.”
“I got ideas I can actually use.”
“I loved seeing how differently people noticed the same habitat — it made me look again.”
“I left thinking about my next step.”
“It left me feeling hopeful — like we’re learning to see and restore nature together.”