in Blacksburg, Va

On the weekend of March 22nd-23rd, 2025, a coalition of southwest Virginia partners  led the seventh annual “The Big Plant” – an annual community event “where thousands of trees are planted on Virginia Tech’s campus and surrounding Blacksburg area to initiate ecological restoration…The Big Plant’s’ mission is to engage community members in projects that improve landscape resiliency, increase stormwater preparedness, and improve water quality through the planting of native trees and shrubs along waterways.”  

Consortium Convener, Amber Ellis and Coordinator, Rachel Bensink made their way to Blacksburg to join Virginia Tech, New River Conservancy, Stroubles Creek Coalition, Watershed Restoration Solutions,  and over 450 volunteers to help plant over 2,500 native trees and shrubs along Stroubles Creek and an additional 138 at Veterans Park. 

We were connected to this event through Restoration Ecologist, Tom Saxton, who works with Virginia Tech and the New River Conservancy. In 2014, Tom founded the Stroubles Creek Coalition while still a student at Virginia Tech and the work to restore it has been in place ever since, with over 100,000 native trees and shrubs installed ten years later as of February of 2024. Learn more about Tom in this Spotlight from the New River Conservancy!

Tom also serves as an instructor at Virginia Tech for the Ecological Restoration Field Practicum. This course is a one-week intensive that provides students with “hands-on experience in designing, implementing, and monitoring complex ecological restoration projects.” As their final project, students served as field leaders during The Big Plant to help apply their topical knowledge and leadership skills. 

This annual event serves as an opportunity for community building, workforce development, and buffer education – all while working toward restoration goals. We look forward to seeing where larger scale volunteer efforts might fit into our work in the Upper and Middle James River watershed. Do you do something similar in your region? Let us know! 

It was a great opportunity to connect with partners from across the state, and are excited to continue to do so as prioritized in our new Action Plan. Be sure to save the date for our first Statewide Buffer Summit, held on October 21st, 2025 at the University of Richmond! 

We look forward to more learning, collaboration, and connection with our Virginia network!