2026 Events
Please find below the 2026 Events listings. We are still working on getting the page set up in a way that makes it easier for you to navigate and get all the details needed for each event.
Please be patient with us while we develop this page. For now, you can still find most of what wlll be happening this season. .
Mark your Calendar
Upcoming Plant Sales where you can find Grow Wild! in the wild.
Grow Native! Native Plant Festival and Sale
September 1
Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge
3395 US-20, Seneca Falls, NY
9AM-3PM
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AUGUST 22
When Ecology Meets Art: ‘Echoes of Nature’ Performance and Workshop Bring Land Restoration to Life in Brooktondale.
Two Opportunities in One Day
with Kim Hoff and Jess Martin
Grow Wild!
245 Speed Hill Rd
Brooktondale NY, 14817
The Ithaca area is widely celebrated for its eco-conscious community and gorgeous landscapes, but this unique event is asking locals to do more than just admire nature—they are inviting them to listen to it, write about it, and actively participate in its healing.
Event Details
What: Echoes of Nature at Grow Wild! (Writing Workshop & Live Performance)
When: Saturday, August 22nd | Workshop at 10:00 AM (Cap: 20) | Performance at 12:00 PM (Cap: 50)
Where: Grow Wild! Native Plant Nursery, 245 Speed Hill Rd, Brooktondale, NY 14817
Cost: Free (Registration required for the workshop and encouraged for the performance)
What to bring: Durable walking shoes/hiking poles (for the workshop), camp chairs (for the performance)
The day begins at 10:00 AM with a 90-minute creative writing workshop led by Kim Hoff and musician Jess Martin. Inspired by their ongoing regional tour of Echoes of Nature—a project dedicated to creating art rooted intimately in forests, rivers, and conservation lands—the workshop will guide participants on an intentional walk through Grow Wild!’s diverse habitats and ecosystems.
Walking with Words:
A Guided Reflective Walk
Workshop
10:00AM - 11:30AM
Registration required
This event is limited to 20 people
If you'd like to attend this event,
please register by emailing Deanna at deannagrowwild@gmail.com
What to expect during the workshop:
Songs and poetry kick off this guided walk focused on connection to place, and on finding ways to let nature bring comfort and creative inspiration. The walk will include stopping points for participants to reflect/ journal/ explore their own creative connection to the natural area we explore.
This session invites participants to observe their surroundings through sensory prompts, reflection, and brief writing or sketching exercises. No experience is required; participants should be prepared for walking outdoors in forest and field, over rocks and roots, with some small hills. The walk will be slow and intentional. Please consider wearing sturdy shoes and hiking poles are welcomed.
Between the workshop and performance (11:30 AM-12:00 PM) Deanna will offer an exclusive tour of the nursery, showcasing the native plant varieties essential to regional biodiversity. Drinks and light refreshments will be available.
Echoes of Nature
Performance
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
No Registration is required.
RSVP is appreciated to prepare for seating.
RSVP at deannagrowwild@gmail.com
Join us at Grow Wild for a unique multi-sensory performance by poet-naturalist Kim Hoff and singer-songwriter Jess Martin. This site-specific collaboration offers a creative bridge between the arts and the natural world.In a time of collective stress and upheaval, Echoes of Nature provides a rare moment of tranquility. The performance explores the profound meaning of space and place, using original songs and written forms to transport the audience through landscapes of memory, history, and environmental stewardship.Blending Kim’s evocative nature poetry with Jess’s soulful original compositions, the project invites audiences to listen deeply and find comfort in the intersection of art and ecology. This special afternoon is a celebration of the power of creativity to help us navigate the complexities of our time.Our goal is to create a space where art becomes a catalyst for reflection and connection—not just to the land, but to each other
The performance is open to all who wish to experience it. Guests are encouraged to bring a camp chair and enjoy light refreshments provided on-site.
To explore the Echoes of Nature tour media kit, music, and poetry, visit their Linktree at linktr.ee/echoes_of_nature.
Mark your Calendar for monthly(ish) events at Grow Wild!
Look Below for Details of Each Event
August 22
Walking with Words: A Guided Reflective Walk and Echos of Nature a music and poetry performance
with Kim Hoff and Jess Martin
Workshop: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Performance". Noon - 1:00 PM
October 10
(Rain Date October 17)
9:00AM-approx. 3:00PM
Annual Tarp Moving, Seeding and Chili
With Deanna English
The Traditional Moving of the Tarp and seeding of the new area at
Grow Wild!
245 Speed Hill Rd
Brooktondale NY, 14817
OCTOBER
Date October 10 (rain date 10/17)
9:00AM-approx. 3:00PM
with a vegetarian lunch break at noon provided
There is no expectation that you stay for the seeding after lunch. We realize this is a long day.
Registration required
When registering you are committing to the morning session.
This event is limited to 8 people.
If you'd like to attend this event, please register by emailing me at deannagrowwild@gmail.com
Inspirational book connection:
The Bad Naturalist
a memoir by Paula Whyman
Each season we expand the meadow project by moving the existing tarp that has been in place since the previous year, take a break to have a vegetarian chili lunch and then return to seed the exposed soil with native plant seeds. This year will be the 8th time moving the tarp, which covers approximately 5000sf.
You may have seen the meadow on one of your visits or been on a meadow tour. Now you can be part of the rewilding of a 100+ year old agricultural field. Please join us and help in this yearly event.
Past 2026 Events
MAY 13
Warbler Walk with Steve Kress
Grow Wild!
245 Speed Hill Rd
Brooktondale NY, 14817
8am-11am
Inspirational book connection:
Audubon Society Guide to Attracting Birds (Cornell Press)
by Steve Kress
Registration required
Come join us as we take an early morning walk on the land where Grow Wild! resides with Steve Kress as our guide. We'll be looking and listening for warblers and other birds. Last year it was great fun. I hope you can join us
STEPHEN KRESS is the founder of National Audubon Society’s Project Puffin and a Visiting
Fellow of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. He previously served as Vice-President for
Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society and Director of the Hog Island Audubon
Camp in Bremen. He is author of many books on seabirds, bird watching, gardening for birds
and teaches Spring Ornithology for the Cayuga Bird Club.
This event is limited to 15 people.
If you'd like to attend this event, please register by emailing me at deannagrowwild@gmail.com
July 11
Native Garden Design Workshop
10-noon
Fee $50
refunded after workshop for Grow Wild! plants or towards the cost of a personal consultation on your property with Brandon during this gardening season.
Registration required
This event is limited to 15 people
If you'd like to attend this event,
please register by emailing Deanna at deannagrowwild@gmail.com
We are so excited that Brandon Hoak is back in Ithaca for a while after recently graduating from Yale with a Master’s degree of Environmental Management (MEM) with a focus in People, Equity, and the Environment (PE2)
Brandon was part of the Grow Wild team almost from the moment it started and is responsible for the Grow Wild! logo and too many ideas to mention here. Let’s just say, I owe Brandon so much for his generous and abundant support and encouragement these past five years as this little, but mighty, plant nursery got its start.
One of Brandon's generous contributions was a Garden Design Workshop he led last season, which was very popular. I’m delighted that he has agreed to do one again this season.
Once you sign up you will get more information on how you should prepare for the workshop.
JUNE 27
Native Bee Walk and Talk
with Kass Urban-Mead
and Rachel Kelty
10am - 12 noon
Grow Wild!
245 Speed Hill Rd
Brooktondale NY, 14817
Inspirational book connection:
The Solitary Bees: Biology, Evolution, Conservation
by Bryan N. Danforth, Robert L. Minckley, and John L. Neff
Registration required
This event is limited to 20 people
If you'd like to attend this event, please register by emailing me at deannagrowwild@gmail.com
Kass Urban-Mead provides technical assistance on pollinator conservation in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast region. As part of this work, she assists with planning, designing, installing, and managing habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects. Kass also works with staff and research partners to develop technical guidelines and provide training on pollinator conservation practices.
Her graduate work in the Cornell Entomology Department characterized the wild bees active in early spring forests and forest canopies, and how the movement of bees between forests and orchards can support orchard pollination. Kass grew up raising 4-H dairy goats in the Hudson Valley. She completed a masters at Yale Forestry, worked for a summer at the Arnold Arboretum, and did ecological research in southern France.
Rachel Kelty is a recent graduate of Cornell University, where she attained her M.S. studying native bees across the Northeastern U.S. Previous work as a research technician in Alaska ignited her interest in ecology and conservation, but her true passion is pollinator conservation. She focuses on community outreach and engagement as a volunteer for the Tompkins Pollinator Pathway and enjoys sharing her continuously growing knowledge and understanding of bees, other pollinators, and native plants with the local community.
AUGUST 1
Night Walk and Mothing Event
with Ash Ferlito and Star Gazing with Guy Mott
Grow Wild!
245 Speed Hill Rd
Brooktondale NY, 14817
Time: 9:00 PM - Midnight
Come anytime and leave anytime
Inspirational book connection:
Night Magic by Leigh Ann Henion
Come join us as we welcome Ash Ferlito back to lead a Night Walk on the Grow Wild! land focusing on moths and helping us identify what comes to the mothing stations.
Guy Mott, will be be ready to focus on the night sky pointing out constellations and other night sky wonders.
Along with the walk and sky viewing we''ll be hanging out at the fire circle to talk about what we enjoy about being out in nature at night. Fireflies and a lovely moon are planning to join us as well. I hope you can join us, too.
Ash Ferlito is an artist whose practice emerges from deep engagement with the natural world, particularly through the observation of moths and birds. Her multidisciplinary work—spanning painting, sculpture, printmaking, and experimental rewilding gardening—invites wonder, reorients perception, and proposes new ways of gathering and seeing.
Central to her practice are mothing events, where she constructs sculptural stations illuminated by specialized lights to attract nocturnal insects. Ferlito records the moths and other species that appear. The project serves dual purposes—celebrating biodiversity through communal observation while generating raw material for her standalone paintings and cyanotype prints, which preserve the insects’ ephemeral arrangements as ethereal, constellation-like impressions.
Guy Mott is an amateur astronomer and lifetime sky watcher. He likes to understand what we're looking at when we look overhead and finds much pleasure in sharing stories of our sky and nighttime phenomena.
