Double your donation & help grow the Wild Plant Nursery! All donations will be matched up to $10,000!

We’re on the cusp of some big changes here at the Earth Sangha – and we need your help to realize them. Partnering with our colleagues in Fairfax County’s Department of Public Works and Environmental Services - Urban Forestry Management Division (DPWES-UFMD) we are moving and expanding the Wild Plant Nursery! To better explain our project and, hopefully, to preempt questions you all may have, we’ve put together an FAQ:

 

Why are you moving the Wild Plant Nursery?

For several years, we have been operating over-capacity at our nursery at Grove Point Park. The effects of this are obvious to see: we are out of stock on species more frequently, our trees and shrubs are smaller because we have less time to grow them out, and many pots are crowded because we simply have no space to place divided pots.
 

Additional space will allow us to address these problems: We will have ample space to sow pots in the greenhouse, and divide crowded pots and let them get established before sending them out to restoration sites or gardens.
 

We will be able to grow trees and shrubs to larger sizes including 3 gallon and 5 gallon containers. This takes time -- a few extra years in some cases -- which means it takes a lot of space as plants just need to sit and grow and get sized up and sit and grow again. Most of the additional growing space will be for trees and shrubs. These will still be "young" plants that are ready to get established and grow quickly on site, but the additional size of the stock will mean a bit more robustness especially against herbivore damage.
 

Our current greenhouse that FCPA has generously let us use for years is in Chantilly -- far away from our Springfield nursery -- which makes moving plants out and figuring out how best to divide them a huge logistical challenge and very labor intensive too. The greenhouse also suffered heating and irrigation failures this year. The new site plan calls for 4 greenhouses on site as part of the nursery operation.

 

Over the years, we have also learned some lessons about how we want to run the nursery and can be more efficient. Shade cloth at our current nursery is hard to deploy, takes up a lot of staff and volunteer time in critical spring and fall seasons, and requires constant maintenance. By forgoing it entirely, we save a lot of staff and volunteer time even if it means our growing rows aren't as tightly packed.
 

Our current irrigation system is problematic -- leaky and unreliable -- but without electricity and the ability to dig trenches on site we could not move to a more sophisticated setup. With the new site we have that ability and will take advantage of it to create a system that gives us more control over the watering in a way that is significantly less time intensive.

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Where will you be moving?

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The new nursery site's address is 9801 Old Colchester Road, Lorton VA 22079. The site is an old agricultural site that was left to go fallow. It is owned by Fairfax County (but is not a park, and not owned by the Park Authority) as part of the Noman M. Cole Jr. Water Recycling Facility. Much of the site is currently forested with young, low-quality forest outside of the floodplain. These trees are primarily sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) with some invasive Ailanthus in areas. While we do need to clear areas for agricultural growing operations (i.e. container yard) we are retaining significant conservation areas around and in the site itself.
 

The site is roughly 24 acres and we intend to use about 10 acres. The remaining 13 acres will be in conservation, with much of it going into active restoration to improve the quality, diversity, and resiliency of the plant communities on site. There are areas of substantially invaded meadow as well as low-quality forest we hope to improve over time using donated plants from the nursery.

 

When will you be moving?

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We don’t have a firm timeline yet. We’re still finalizing details with our colleagues at DPWES - UFMD, but once we have a  critical infrastructure in place (i.e. water, deer fencing) we will begin moving our plants and equipment. We are currently preparing the sections of the site which will be used for propagation work. We anticipate moving plants over the winter. 

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In the short term, we will need help clearing invasive brush, cutting small trees, digging irrigation trenches and other preparations to our agricultural operations. If you want to volunteer please contact Maddie Bright at mbright@earthsangha.org.

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How will the Wild Plant Nursery operation change at the new site?

 

In addition to growing the scale of the operation and locating our greenhouse(s) near our container yard, we’re planning a few changes to make our nursery easier to browse and work more efficiently for us. Here are some of the changes we’re considering:

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1. A separate sales yard for plants that are ready to go. No more walking by plants that are roped off, have signs saying they were freshly repotted, etc. Instead, if you see it, you’re welcome to it! This also makes it easier for us to make the area more accessible with raised benches, more signage, and wider walkways.

2. Significant conservation and restoration on-site. We’re planning our site from the very get-go to include habitat conservation within the space – and a very significant conservation buffer too. To this end, we will use very little shade cloth and instead rely on “conservation hedge rows” of native trees between our growing rows to break up the wind and provide shade. Where the site doesn’t already have trees and shrubs, we’ll add them. We anticipate having a substantial portion of the site in conservation – some of it demonstration areas with trails while others may be in need of invasives removal and restoration.

3. More creature comforts for volunteers. We hope to have access to electricity on-site (we’re joining the 20th century!) so we can run fans on hot days, have heaters on cold mornings, offer cold (and hot!) water, and leave space for picnic benches and umbrellas. Having a space for outdoor education and just general relaxation is a top priority for us. We want our nursery to feel like a refuge for plants, wildlife, and us.

4. A focus on sustainable practices. For example: by using trees for shade rather than plastic shade cloth we reduce the amount of plastic on-site by an astonishing 12 tons and the amount of steel by over 50 tons. We will not use any geotextile fabrics, so as to not contribute to soil-borne microplastics. Our plan to use wood chips rather than gravel for most, but not all, walkways means burning less carbon-based fuels to haul around heavy material from quarries when we can use chip drops from local arborists. We will continue to totally eschew the use of pesticides in the growing of our plants, and minimize the use of fertilizers on an as-needed basis. And of course, we’re planning for significant replanting on-site to maintain as much of the nursery as ecologically significant habitat as possible.

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