Blending education and experience, Todd helps bring audiences clear, reliable answers to everyday lawn and garden questions.
Long before answering questions about pests, perennials and planting, Backyard Farmer host Kim Todd loved being outside.
Growing up in Iowa, she was immersed in nature. “I grew up in the woods…so I’ve been outside all my life. It comes as second nature,” she said.
Animals were part of her world, too. At 13, her father bought her a horse — partly, she jokes, because “if you’re busy with horses, you won’t be busy with boys.”
Years later, Todd and her husband planned to buy one horse, but ended up with two purebred Arabians. On an acreage near Denton, they trained and showed horses, once owning nearly a dozen, as well as cats and dogs – including Buster, her Australian shepherd.
Today, Todd’s roots are firmly planted in Nebraska. “I tell people I was Iowan by birth and Nebraskan by choice,” she said. That decision is reflected in her family life: both sons live less than a mile away in Lincoln, along with five grandchildren.
Todd earned her landscape architecture degree from Iowa State and a master’s from Nebraska, becoming campus landscape architect. Her career at the university flourished, eventually expanding into roles that pulled her away from the plants she loved. “People tell me I was very good at it,” she recalled. “And I absolutely could not do it.”
Determined to return to her roots, Todd began work at Finke Gardens, reconnecting with the green spaces that first inspired her. An invitation to teach a single university course grew into a position that combined teaching and extension. It was a natural fit.
Hosting television was never on her radar. “Never.” Yet for more than 20 years, Todd has brought her calm expertise to the nation’s longest-running, locally produced lawn and garden show.
It endures, she believes, because “it is practical, it is personal and it’s fun!” The panel’s trusted, research based guidance helps viewers make their own decisions.
After hours of teaching and preparation (often stretching late into the night as she tries to answer every email), she walks into the studio and settles her mind, still deeply rooted in work she loves.
“The beauty of any job is, does it make your heart sing?” she said. For Kim Todd, the answer is still yes.