Reclaiming and Replanting Our Hillside with Native Plants

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The Backstory

When our beautiful Visitor Center was first constructed back in the late 2000’s, the sloping hillside on the back side of the building that leads down to the historic Rouss Spring was cleared and planted with some rose bushes.

The hillside when the Visitor Center was built in the late 2000’s

Unfortunately, over the years these rose bushes disappeared under a very dense cover of invasive plants, including autumn olive, bush honeysuckle, tree of heaven, english ivy, johnson grass, wine berry and others.

The hillside completely covered in invasive species in 2020

The Plan

In 2020, we began discussing a plan to reclaim this hillside and replant it with strictly native plants that would benefit the native wildlife and pollinators. We enlisted the services of local native ecology expert Dr. Iara Lacher and her Winchester-based company Seven Bends Nursery.

We developed a plan and with Shenandoah University’s help, we mechanically cleared out the old invasive plants in the late fall of 2021. In the spring of 2022, we laid down about 2,700 sq ft of black plastic sheeting to kill all of the invasive species down to the roots using water and light deprivation and trapped heat. We are trying to avoid using chemical herbicides everywhere possible.

Dr. Lacher crafted a detailed landscaping plan with 29 species of plants, all native to Virginia and 27 of which are native to the Northern Shenandoah Valley.

Schematic for native planting at the Visitor Center

The final piece of this plan fell into place in 2022 when we received a Healing the Planet grant from the GIANT Company to help fund the project.

Later that year, with the help of the City of Winchester Parks and Recreation Department staff, we planted 34 native trees and shrubs, including Eastern redbud and paw paw trees, button bushes, river locusts, meadowsweet and winterberries.

Finishing the Planting With YOUR Help!

In early 2023 we ordered 478 native grasses, sedges and perennial flowers,  ready to be planted in the ground! They included false blue indigo, jewelweed, swamp rose mallow, sweet joe-pye-weed, wild bergamot, blue mistflower, rattlesnake master, butterfly and swamp milkweeds, little and big bluestems and numerous others.

Our incredible community was invited to help! We had over 50 community volunteers of all ages help us plant the hillside on Sunday, June 11th!

A huge thank you again to our community for their support with this project!