May 29, 2023

Dear Friends,

Meander the garden this time of year and you’ll hear birdsong rising from nearly every shrub and treetop. It’s a busy time for our avian friends as life shifts to high gear. Same for us at Boxerwood. Whistling while we work (or thereabouts) we too are flitting about, gathering treasures, raising young. Tending the nest is the theme of the season and also this NewsLeaf. Thank you for being part of this ever regenerating work.

From our nest to yours,

The Boxerwood Team

This month Boxerwood achieved a long term goal: we’ve created a new garden of native plants to beautify the approach to the Lodge, rehabilitating an area that had been largely taken over by invasive species. 

A heartfelt thank you to all our Boxerwood friends who supported the recent annual garden appeal. Your generosity has surpassed expectations, and Boxerwood is thrilled to share that we raised double our original $12,000 goal. Your generous investment means the garden crew will have the resources they need to tend our “nest” well this year.

100 households are celebrating the successful conclusion of the 2023 Backyard Composting Challenge this week. Tending their home in new ways, these earth stewards diverted two tons of food waste from the landfill over ten weeks, an impact that will keep growing with their new composting habits. We asked the champs to share takeaways from this citizen-science project and this is what they had to say.

Kudos to 18 Maury River Middle students who, one Friday after school last month, planted three dozen seedlings along a tributary of Woods Creek. Many of the students were members of the Boxerwood Bay Club, committed to local give-back action after a trip to the Chesapeake Bay last fall. The project was in partnership with Rockbridge Conservation, owner of the property, and COREworks, Boxerwood’s carbon offset marketplace.

Plans for A Wild Notion, Boxerwood’s October event, are well underway. Artistic Director Stephanie Hodde will host an information session (no commitment required) for adults and older youth interested in being part of the happening as puppeteers, performers, and/or summertime stuff makers. The meet-up at Boxerwood is Sunday, June 4, 10:30 am - noon. If you can’t make that time she’s got another option, too.

Boxerwood educators have just completed another cycle of Project NEST, our school-day preK - HS partnership program. This year we served 2,500+ children from all 12 public schools and 17 preschools. In addition to learning about nature and its wonders, NEST students also planted 700+ native trees, wrote 400+ anti-littering pledges, reseeded 30+ plots of bare soil, launched composting programs at three schools, monitored four waterways, and with blessings from state officials, released 100 very knowledgeable, school-raised brook trout (see photo above). Thank you to all our donors who help us tend Project NEST.

The City of Lexington along with local organizations is piloting a new collaborative to advance its green plans for a thriving community: healthy water, shady streets, clean energy and more. The public-private partnership (which includes Boxerwood) seeks a paid part-time facilitator to manage communications among members. Do you know someone with these skills? Deadline to apply is June 5. 

We kicked off our 10th season of Music in the Garden on Friday! Shows are always on Fridays, and the gates open at 5:30 pm. $5 per adult; kids and members frolic for free. LexVegas Food Truck will be at every show.

Support arrives in many forms to help Boxerwood tend its nest. Through our community's generous offerings of time, energy, money, and ideas, the garden receives care while we stay focused on our educational mission. In a recent conservation action, Boxerwood friends Anne and David Grizzle helped us achieve a goal that has been years in the dreaming: a native plants installation in front of Munger Lodge.

Anne hopes this gift will inspire others, noting, "David and I believe in the power of community, and we hope that our action will encourage more folks to step up for Boxerwood. There are countless ways both large and small to give back.” Thank you, Anne and David! We can’t wait to see how your gift grows.

To learn more about how you can align your heart values with Boxerwood’s goals, contact our Executive Director, Emily Kohl: kohle@boxerwood.org

Boxerwood's mission is to educate and inspire people of all ages towards becoming environmentally responsible stewards of the Earth.

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