We have been expanding native plant gardens around our main facility at Wood Thrush Park to benefit wildlife and serve as an educational example of how folks can create their own. In addition to our meadow style gardens, we also have two microhabitat gardens demonstrating the plant communities of shale barrens and boreal bogs.
Peter’s Garden
Peter’s Garden is a native botanic garden created at Wood Thrush Park as an homage to our consultant, Peter Heus, a longtime native nurseryman and plant conservationist. Peter designed the garden and propagated many of the plants within it. The project was completed in 2025 after three years of groundwork and planting. As a completely native garden, it is visited by a wide diversity of insects, birds, small mammals, and other critters. The focus is to use local seed populations to establish our gardens and restoration projects; this provides a higher degree of resiliency as the genetics of the plant are adapted to our conditions here in Appalachia. The garden ebbs and flows as natural gardens do, with species moving, spreading, and rearranging themselves over time.
Contact Isabella Walker (iwalker@appheadwaters.org) to inquire about guided garden tours and programs available.
