Little Bluestem cultivates a resilient and harmonious future for Central Virginia's land and people- human and otherwise- through collaborative projects, community education, and local genotype native plant propagation.  Our nursery seeds, tends, and distributes native plants that are essential to the resilience of our bioregional ecosystems.  Community partnerships and educational programs focused on ecology and land-based skills facilitate the exchange of information, labor, and nourishment between ourselves, our neighbors, and the non-human inhabitants of the landscape for the mutual benefit of present and future generations.  

WHY LITTLE BLUESTEM?

Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) is a grass that forms deep roots and thrives in a wide range of local plant communities.  They are food for buffalo and Leonard’s skipper, home to nematodes and leafhoppers, soft bed to deer and song sparrows, sanctuary to spring peepers and white-footed mice, clothing to the Rockfish River Valley, visible integument to the living spirit of our home landscape. Roughly one in every three grasses in the Piedmont Prairie ecosystem is a Little Bluestem.  

As our nursery and education center grow and thrive, our roots span and deepen within and throughout the region, branching and intertwining with our many partners. Like our namesake, we flourish together in place through mycorrhizae, community partnership, and mutual aid.

Little Bluestem is a pretty cute name for a plant and a non-profit too! We are honored to share a name with this stalwart grass.  As we move forward we seek to bring honor and recognition not just to Little Bluestem the grass, but to all community partners, plants, insects, fungi, birds, and mammals; human and non-human people alike. When our work helps others become materially interconnected parts of the land they are living on, we live this goal.