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 at the very final stages of an agreement to relocate and expand our nursery. We aren’t quite ready to share every detail – including the site location, other than that we will be remaining in Fairfax County! – but we need your support to get ready for this next phase of the Earth Sangha’s Wild Plant Nursery’s growth. 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?

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While the current site at Grove Point Park has served us well for over 20 years, we have been operating at the very limits of capacity at the site for several years now. We routinely run out of space for repotting which is limiting our ability to grow for large-scale restoration projects. Our watering needs (especially during drought years!) have grown and we share that need for water with our Community Garden Plot neighbors. We also need to consolidate our growing efforts, which include the greenhouse that our Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) colleagues have been enormously generous with in Chantilly. Both sites have been absolutely essential to our operation, but in order to better support habitat restoration and plant conservation across Northern Virginia, we need to increase the scale and efficiency of our operation.

The new site will offer significant expansion opportunities, and we intend to take advantage to the fullest. Our intentions are to expand our growing operation to both offer more total plants and more biodiversity. Crucially, we also want to be able to grow out our trees and shrubs to larger sizes for plantings that may require 3 gallon or even 5+ gallon pots. Because it takes time for these plants to reach that size, these larger plants will require a substantial investment in space.

 

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 final agreement and critical infrastructure in place (i.e. water, deer fencing) we will begin moving our plants and equipment. Don’t worry! You won’t miss the announcement – we’ll need help hauling stuff! – and there will definitely be an overlap period as we get everything set up.

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What does this mean for your work with Fairfax County Park Authority?

 

We want to be especially clear on this point: while the Fairfax County Park Authority won’t be hosting our nursery, they remain absolutely essential partners in our work. Indeed, we expect this move to allow us to expand our support for vital FCPA programs including the IMA program, Helping our Lands Heal, and the newly created Landscape Legacy and Sustainability Program. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to our friends at FCPA for all their help over the years at Grove Point Park and it is our firm intention to continue to work closely with park staff and volunteers and continue to supply them with the local-ecotype plants they need.

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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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What will happen to the current Wild Plant Nursery site?

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We will of course defer to FCPA on this point – it’s their park after all! – but we’re committed to cleaning up after ourselves and should they want to restore the space (there are a lot of native seeds in the soil there from 23 years of growing!) we’re more than happy to help in that regard.

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That sounds great! How can I help?

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Okay, maybe this question is a bit of wishful thinking… but we do absolutely need your help! This nursery expansion will come with significant expenses. We will need to do some land clearing, dig trenches for water lines, build greenhouses, and spread mulch and gravel. We’ll have to extend electric utilities and purchase many, many more pots, pot tags, and hoses/irrigation equipment. We’ll also need to buy some larger equipment to make this happen including a sub-compact tractor and some kind of electric utility vehicle (think a golf cart with a bed). We’ll also need plenty of help on the volunteering side – helping us load and unload our trailer when the time comes to move the plants, getting all sorts of things set up, and of course all the regular horticultural work that operating a nursery entails.

 

 

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