In October 2010, volunteers from the Friends of Lemoine Point and staff from Cataraqui Conservation collaborated with community volunteers to plant several hundred shrubs alongside the south entrance to the conservation area. As they grew, these plants would provide habitat and food to some of the many birds and other wildlife that call the area home. Among the volunteers were many of those who had brought the Friends organization into existence a dozen years before. The fruits of their devotion included not just this and other such plantings, but also the Native Plant Nursery, from which came the shrubs that were planted with such care on that chilly autumn day in 2010.
Flash forward 15 years to an even chillier day in mid-February 2025. Another group of volunteers from the Friends ventured into the winter landscape to harvest branches from what has become a thriving grove of mature trees and shrubs, soon to transform them into hardwood cuttings, and then tore them away, chilled to near freezing, to protect them until planting time in the spring.
In 60 days or so, the cuttings will be planted and protected from frost and desiccation inside the Nursery 'hoop house' where nature will encourage the cutting to emerge from dormancy.
A few weeks after that, the cuttings that have started to become established will join the other trees, shrubs and wildflowers that Friends volunteers cultivate at the Nursery. As the days go by, they will transform from unlikely-looking 'sticks in the ground' into vibrant little trees and shrubs, soon to find their forever homes in the forests and meadows of Lemoine Point or the many landscapes that our customers improve by adding native plants.
As we harvest from these plants, we give thanks to the people who brought them to this place, and to Mother Earth, who cared for them, providing what they needed to grow strong and healthy through the years and the seasons.
We prepare the cuttings with an eye to the future generations who will enjoy the benefits that these plants provide, and who may someday, in turn, harvest another generation of cuttings to promote diversity in the landscape from their time.