Watering red spruce seedlings at the Southern Highlands Reserve

Kelly Holdbrooks leads plant conservati­on at Southern Highlands Reserve

The reserve’s biggest public-facing project is its red spruce restoration effort, which has planted roughly 4,000 trees on public land since 2009 in conjunction with state, federal and nonprofit partners. “When you get down to it, we’re just little plant nerds, doing the good fight and sharing everything we learn,” Holdbrooks says.