Old Bones & New Beginnings

Welcome to the new year, folks.

Yet another blank slate within the arbitrary rhythm of life that is time, ready to be inundated with new plans, routines, affirmations and aspirations. This is true also for our natural ecosystems, regardless of location, scale, or inhabitants.  Wandering through the surrounding nursery woodlands, as I’m often wont to do during the chilly, barren months of January, my brain underwent a gentle refresher, ruminating upon the possibilities of what’s to come, what could be, and the appreciation for and understanding of things that no longer are.

Standing amongst the bones of dormant trees and the shrub skeletons diligently holding onto their previous year’s fruits now dry and brittle with early winter wear, a choir of birdsong began to fill the air in a most harmonious and gratifying orchestra. Greeted by a curious Northern mockingbird, a social and noisy tufted titmouse, and a watchful but playful pileated woodpecker, my brief sylvan journey became a microcosm of wonderment.

These moments in winter are not only signals for us to slow down and observe, but to hold gratitude for the clandestine moments in the natural world that are often obscured by the foliage of the growing season.

Resetting beneath the thick layer of crunchy fallen leaves, small holly, sweetgum, and oak saplings peak hopefully upward, dwarfed by the sleeping giants that have overseen the woods for many years now. Belonging also to the medley of bequeathed leaves (and the reason I actually was out there to begin with) are abrupt and disjointed piles of rusted metal, old glass bottles in various states of disrepair, and oddities such as worn shoe leathers, tires, teacups, and toilets (yes, toilets). Before these objects started to be organized for removal, they lived in a scattered fashion around the forest floor.

You’d be right to think the ill placement of these gadgets would be a conundrum. Unwarranted and abandoned human intervention within the sacred grounds of our wood line? Let alone a wood line filled with likely tetanus-infested rusted metal waiting patiently beneath the leaves for the rare but unsuspecting visitor to accidentally skewer themselves? Sure, littering is bad, 100%. However, being a regular visitor and observer to these forlorn objects, I began to appreciate them as micro-ecosystems, capable of harboring life forms of all types.

Innumerable moss species and lichens creep over neglected bricks and stone; glass bottles involuntarily becoming terrariums to leaf litter, moss, fungi, isopods and beetles; impossibly tough roots battle through old masonry, once having been the lifeblood of plants that quite literally could grow through hell itself. Shoot, even the questionable pieces of rusty metal became micro-shelters for insects, ferns, and shade-loving sedges.

These moments of nature reclaiming our human inventions are rather restorative to witness – it implies nature’s ability to thrive under even some of the most adverse and ludicrous conditions we’ve provided them with.  This is notable for our human-driven environments, especially jam-packed urban ones, suffering from a lack of available natural resources for weary pollinators, foragers, and harvesters. Perhaps there’s more leeway in these environments than we give them credit for.  Maybe there’s hope for greener pastures and urban spaces after all.

We’re excited for what we’re getting ready to bring you this year.

We’re internally focused on what it means to sustain ecology in urban spaces, disturbed sites, and hellscapes with compacted, nutrient poor, dry and often heat and drought-prone soils, working to identify what we’re affectionately referring to as “apocalypse plants”. Alongside that, we’ve also expanded our native plant selection to support the inclusion of critical plant species in our cultivated landscapes for the health and success of our bird and insect populations across the Eastern United States.

We look forward to talking with you all about these topics and much, much more as the year continues. Make sure to find us at the following trade shows in 2026, and as always, feel free to stop by the nursery and say hello!  We’re thrilled to embark on this new year with you all and can’t wait to see what you have in store for us.