Our passion is plants, and following that passion gives us ample opportunity to interact with other aspects of the natural world too. With the open nature of our store, we often have little critters that wander onto our property and even into the buildings.
Often, it’s a moss basket in the greenhouse that gets the honor of becoming home to a nest of baby birds, but this year, a robin chose the south wall of our plaza to raise a family. Whenever there’s an event like this somewhere in our store, we do our best to keep a respectful distance. In past years, we’ve had a duck nest at the base of one of our trees as well as a killdeer vehemently defending her brood in Hardy Plants. We enjoy taking a little time away from foliage and flowers to witness the process from eggs to fledglings to leaving the nest behind.
Birds are fun to watch, but the insects grab our attention too. Recently, our Hardy Plants team successfully released nine swallowtail butterflies they raised from caterpillars that had been found among the plants. And earlier this spring, part of our Customer Service team took advantage of a lull in the store action to inspect a line of ants that appeared in the Plaza.
But probably the most unusual animal to appear lately was this huge soft-shelled turtle we found hiding in a grow pot in Hardy Plants. He has since been relocated to the creek, where we’re sure he’s a lot happier. If you thought we were only about plants, just ask one of our team members for stories of other interesting wildlife we run across as part of our job. It’s inevitable when our office includes so many great outdoor spaces.
