Dear Friends of Southern Highlands Reserve,
Summer on the mountain feels like a deep exhale. After the anticipatory energy of spring — the unfurling, the first blooms, the eager arrival of visitors — summer settles into something fuller and more generous. The forest canopy closes overhead. Afternoon thunderstorms roll in off the ridgelines, and for a few minutes the world smells entirely of wet earth and green. Then the sun returns, and the light through the hemlocks and red spruce is the color of patience itself.
I have been paying close attention to that light lately. And to the birds, which seem to know something I keep forgetting: that the only moment worth inhabiting is this one.
This summer, Southern Highlands Reserve is alive in a way that is genuinely new. For the first time in our history, we are a team of seven, and the energy that comes from that is unmistakable. In May and June, we welcomed Jan Hardin as our Communications and Engagement Manager, Vera Volin as our newest Gardener, and our summer interns, Laura Harvey and Pricilla Ruiz. Along with Brent Antrim, our Garden Manager, and Emily Cobb, our Seasonal Gardener, we now have a staff that reflects the full breadth of this work: the science, the stewardship, and the storytelling.
We are also deep into a partnership with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects — one of the most respected landscape architecture firms in the country — to develop a comprehensive master plan for Southern Highlands Reserve. This is meaningful, long-horizon work, and it fills me with a particular kind of hope.
There is so much to look forward to this summer. Our Community Native Plant Sale returns on July 31st. Our new event, Sketchbook Journaling in the Garden, will be offered twice in September. And throughout the season, we continue to welcome guests to this place that so many of us are privileged to call home.
Thank you for your continued support. The work we do here — the propagation, the research, the restoration, the education — is only possible because of you.
With deep gratitude,
Kelly M. Holdbrooks