A white geometric, symbol of the Great Blue Heron on a black background.

The Ardea Land Project is held with a vision for tending land, spirit, and community. It is an exploration in creating a place to express a range of human experience - as a child, adolescent, adult, and elder. Direct relationship with the living, spirit-filled world is a catalyst for this work.

Ardea, where the project was born, is land once inhabited by the Cherokee and Catawba: 60 acres among the foothills of the Southern Appalachian Mountains in Cleveland County.

This online platform’s primary function is to be a home for the Feralwood Nursery shop. Our nursery focuses on bareroot, perennial, native plants that are shipped during dormancy.

However, there is always so much more going on around here! Our overarching mission is to deeply steward our dynamic land project - integrating people, plants, and animals for the well-being of all.

Thank you for being here.

Hazelnut seed being planted in a rectangular air pruning bed, with more hazelnuts in a wooden sieve. Green grass and soil surrounding the frame. 
Hybrid hazelnut and American chestnut planting.
A lush garden scene with a large flowering Elderberry shrub with white clustered flowers and thick green leaves on the right, and garden beds with plants and soil on the left, along a dirt pathway.

Elderberry (nova variety) at the entrance to the Feralwood center.

A lush garden with green leafy plants and tall grass, surrounded by fallen logs and trees, with a child partially visible among the plants.
A small, circular fire pit made of rocks, with some leaves and wood inside, surrounded by dirt and wood chips.
A man with glasses and a beard crouching in tall green grass, observing two black pigs, in a rural outdoor setting with trees and wooden structures in the background.
A large rock with four smaller rocks placed on top, surrounded by snow.
Two children’s hands reaching towards and touching yellowish Chanterelle mushrooms growing on the forest floor among fallen leaves and twigs.
A spider web attached to a wooden birdhouse surrounded by green leaves and trees in a forest.
Trees without leaves silhouetted against a blue sky as the sun sets or rises on the horizon.
Person holding a cloth bag filled with hazelnuts outdoors on a forest floor with leaves and twigs.
Dark storm clouds cover most of the sky with sunlight peeking through, illuminating the edges of the clouds and silhouetting trees at the bottom.