From our team to you: Thank you! 2024 was a year of progress for the natural world through conservation and environmental education. We’re excited to move forward into a new year of reconnecting our community with nature.

American Mistletoe (Phoradendrum leucarpum) is a broadleaf evergreen that continues to shine past the holiday season. Often a symbol of love and peace in the human world, this plant serves a much more complicated role in ecology.

Eastern Red Cedar is a confusing name for this species, since it’s a juniper, not a cedar. Juniperus virginiana is native to the eastern half of the United States and southeastern Canada. Many of us have seen this tree around our neighborhoods or along roadsides but may not have paid much attention to it. However, it’s a valuable member of our flora.

Carolina Rose – Rosa Carolina – is a member of the Rose (Rosaceae) family and is a perennial, deciduous, shade-loving flowering shrub that has many 2-3-inch flowers from June through August. Of course, if given full sun, it will produce a myriad of large, pink blossoms. It is native to the eastern and central United States and grows to a height of 3 to 6 feet tall and a diameter of 5 to 10 feet.

Coral Bells – Heuchera americana – A gardener’s workhorse and a centuries-old classic, the Alumroot/Coral Bells are a native genus of wonderfully attractive, clump-forming, herbaceous perennials in the highly diverse Saxifrage family - Saxifragaceae. Generally hardy from USDA zones 4 through 9, some species are adaptable in zones 3 through 11; alumroot/ coral bells are as reliable as they come in the plant world.

Muhly Grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) is a perennial native grass that has become a very popular addition to many gardens and landscapes. Its most common name is Muhly Grass. The genus Muhlenbergia is in the grass family, the Poaceae. It is often used as an accent plant in gardens, as filler for disturbed areas, or in large groups for a visually stunning effect. As autumn approaches, Muhly Grass takes center stage when it bursts forth with its wispy purple/pink spikes of flowers.

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) is closely related to Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) – both being in the Cypress family, the Cupressaceae. What’s perhaps most fascinating about Dawn Redwood is its discovery, after a botanist discovered a fossil and thought this tree extinct. Come see our “living fossils!” They’re beautiful at all times of the year, and their buttressed and furrowed trunks are a sight to behold.

The term “native” is frequently used in regard to plants, but what exactly does it mean - and how does it differ from the term “endemic” plant?

Strawberry Bush – Euonymus americanus – is a deciduous, perennial shrub native to the southern and mid-Atlantic US. It grows to a height of 4 to 12 feet with a similar diameter and makes an excellent background or specimen in the landscape.