2025 Season in Photos: A Year of Change

Claire Shady
1 day ago
3 min read

Written by Elsie Read

As always, the 2025 season started with soil, seed, and the promise of sun. After settling into the new year, the greenhouse was cleaned and set up, ready for the newest batch of plants! Our production crew started in early February with sowing plugs, adding a little life into the still frigid winter season. Within a month, seedlings started growing, and the world got a little more green.

Once our seedlings began to root, we started the next step in our production process - early spring into mid summer, pot ups begin. For weeks our hard working crew take plugs and shift them into retail-ready and landscaping pots, such as 5" pots and 1 gallons, and also restoration specific sizes, such as 40ci and Shorts # 1s. All this while continuing to fill the rest of our greenhouses! Rain or shine, freezing temps or underneath the hot sun we made sure our plants were potted up with the utmost care. Especially under the watchful eye of Kitty, our most precious and hard working crew member!

Entering the middle of the year with full speed and our production underway, shipping began! From landscaping to restoration projects, we packed up and shipped out over 500,000 plants. Starting in late spring and stretching all the way through fall, we ship, ship, ship! (Even when we have to re-box sometimes.)

This year we partnered with Garden for Wildlife, an online retailer that is crucial in the fight to restore habitat for our pollinators. Not only do consumers get beautiful plants for their space, but they also get the peace of mind knowing they are planting for our environment. We, of course, provide the plants! From May - August shipped smaller 2.5 in. and one gallon pots straight to the customer's front door. These native plants bring in specific pollinators and wildlife, such as butterflies, bees, fireflies, and hummingbirds to your garden.

In addition to our new partnerships, we continued to develop existing projects and partnerships locally, especially our Water-wise initiatives with Bitterroot Water Partnership. This year we sold over 40 Water-wise Plant Packs in the Bitterroot Valley, installed a new Water-wise Garden in Hamilton, and maintained several demonstration gardens throughout our community.

We also spread the plant pack love up to Missoula County by delivering over 150 plant packs for residential and municipal projects spearheaded by Bee City Missoula, ReWild Missoula, and Conservation Districts across Western MT.

We also grew and supplied native plants for restoration projects throughout the Western US! From new projects - large wetland grows for a development in Utah and stream restoration in Nevada - to recurring projects - Sage Grouse restoration projects in Nevada; riparian restoration in Wyoming and Montana; and restoration of native populations of wildflowers and forbs in Grand Teton National Park - our plants are now living their best lives across the West.

Now, for the most exciting portion of this fruitful 2025 season... we moved! Over the course of the last year and a half we have been building a new facility to support the growth and longevity of our company. Though we hold our first home in our hearts, we are so excited to move into this new chapter of Great Bear Native Plants.

Slowly over the year our old facility was dismantled, emptied, and moved to our new location. Alongside our plants, we grew new roots, finding purchase while the seasons changed.

Though the sun set on our old greenhouses, we can not wait to bloom into the 2026 season.