The Big Plant

03/27/2026

The hour draws near...

The age may come, where the courage of humans fail... but it is not this day...for upon the coming sun... we PLANT!

The Big Plant in Blacksburg is this weekend! The horn bellows in the deep... Calling for the Green Hord to raise it's banners for a common cause. For the Green Wall is to be risen upon the land - for the Seventh Generation!

See you out there!

03/26/2026

Info for this weekend!

03/25/2026

Coming up!!

03/18/2026

The Big Plant is on deck!

Sign up for Radford or Blacksburg here:
https://ecologicalrestorationcollaborative.org/the-big-plant/

03/18/2026

150+ native trees and shrubs are soon to move into their permanent homes along the banks of the New River at Bisset Park this weekend at the Radford Big Plant. Others have been or will be planted across public lands sites in Pulaski and Montgomery Counties.

Special thanks to the Nature Foundation at Wintergreen for donating nearly 200 plants for public lands plantings and to the Urban Horticulture Center at Virginia Tech for tending to them throughout this wild winter!

Join us at the Radford Big Plant this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday--Signup link in bio!

02/07/2026

Join us for the 8th annual Big Plant at Stroubles Creek!

Together, we will plant thousands of native trees and shrubs to reforest and restore riparian buffer, which will then create wildlife habitat, healthier soils, and better water quality for our local watershed and beyond!

Sign up https://signup.com/mobileweb/2.0/vspot.html?activitykey=483903138069&fbclid=IwdGRjcAP1sohjbGNrA_WygGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHr5NLlOjKQmKhjwcLCfj0S4jzK1DgmxlDQiGOL64K9s4lsDe2EyQIAuGGfww_aem_gl8limNEucvH5eDvAb8Hsg

01/25/2026

The Stroubles Creek Coalition (now, Ecological Restoration Collaborative) has been a top partner for The Big Plant since the beginning in 2019 - the the leadership teams of both of our groups overlap substantially.

Complex events like this are forged through symbiotic collaboration. This is the way.

As our Coalition's restoration journeys take us beyond the banks of Stroubles Creek, we have changed our name to reflect the broader collaborative efforts on the landscape.

We have undergone a few iterations over the years:
2014 - 2016: Save Stroubles
2016 - 2018: Stroubles Creek Restoration Initiative
2018 - 2026: Stroubles Creek Coalition
2026 - Present: Ecological Restoration Collaborative

Stroubles Creek will always be our home base of operations as we broaden our quest to restore resilient ecosystems on the landscape and forge a brighter future for the seventh generation.

01/22/2026

Remember, Stroubles Creek is a Hokie too! Virginia Tech's campus footprint is largely within the Stroubles watershed, which means what happens in and around campus happens to everything downstream.

This is a hokie-fied map of the watershed (for the sake of a fun visual) which consists of a significant chunk of Blacksburg, Price mountain, and Slate Branch, a tributary on the south side of Price mountain.

If you pick up trash, fix your oil leaks, and take care of the land and water upstream, and you will care for everything downstream, including the New River, the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico.

01/18/2026

We found some friends chillin in our prescribed fire/ riparian buffer planting sites late last summer!

Photo by S.Haney

01/17/2026

Virginia Tech Athletics paid JMU 800k to not play in football next year. Are we running from the fear of the 2010 defeat happening again? (joking)

Since 2010, we have planted over 110,000 native trees and shrubs across over 120 acres of the *FEDERALLY-LISTED IMPAIRED* Stroubles Creek watershed for less than 800k...

We've engaged thousands of students through the Big Plant (and countless other events). We've taught the next generation of land managers through VT courses. Our projects have contributed to published research. We've fenced out livestock from over 15 acres of waterways. We've fought highly aggressive non-native species that result in plummeting biodiversity if left unchecked. We've created a grassroots coalition from the bottom up comprised of VT Alumni, Students, Faculty, Staff, Non-profits, State Agencies, industry professionals, and community groups ... all for less money than VT paid to cancel a single football game.

The red polygons on the attached map are the Coalition's riparian restoration areas to date....we ain't messing around! As long as Stroubles flows, we flow. We won't get bucked off the path to victory in our quest to restore a resilient, native riparian forest along Stroubles Creek.