Linda Rohleder Ph.D.
Growing Native Plants for Restoration Projects
Volunteers with the Wild Woods Restoration Project are growing native plants for restoration efforts in local parks across the Hudson Valley. By using local ecotype seeds, they are helping to preserve the region’s genetic diversity and restore habitats in these parks. Dr. Rohleder will explain how the project organizes volunteers to grow plants at home and will discuss the concepts and challenges they face with local ecotype seeds and sustainable growing practices. Since 2022, the project has engaged over 300 volunteers and cultivated tens of thousands of plants. This initiative highlights the powerful impact volunteers can make through collective action.
About Linda Rohleder
Founder & President, Wild Woods Restoration Project
Dr. Linda Rohleder founded Wild Woods Restoration Project in early 2022 to mobilize volunteers to grow local ecotype native seeds for restoration projects in local parks. The organization is now a 501c3 nonprofit and has involved over 300 volunteers. For nearly 10 years, she served as Director of Land Stewardship at the New York – New Jersey Trail Conference where she built the Trail Conference’s Stewardship department and created programs such as the Invasives Strike Force which trained over 400 invasives-mapping volunteers who collectively surveyed more than 1,500 miles of hiking trails for invasive plants, conducted over 100 invasives-removal workdays and managed a seasonal conservation corps crew. Dr. Rohleder was also the founding coordinator of the Lower Hudson Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM) in New York leading it for almost ten years. She grew the partnership to over 50 organizations and agencies, and led the development and implementation of regional strategy for invasive species management in the Lower Hudson. In addition, Dr. Rohleder led a volunteer group to create and maintain the Trail Conference’s native plant gardens.
In 2013, Dr. Rohleder received her PhD in Ecology from Rutgers University, where she studied the effects of deer on forest understories. While attending graduate school she worked as a seasonal park resource assistant in Monmouth County, NJ, and taught beginning Biology labs at Rutgers and Wetland Plant ID for Rutgers’ Wetland Delineation certification series. Prior to returning to graduate school she worked at AT&T as a software developer and project manager for 14 years. Dr. Rohleder has also spent more than 30 years creating native plant wildlife habitat on her own properties both in New Jersey and New York. She is a member of the Garden Club of Orange and Dutchess Counties and a Cornell Cooperative Extension Master Forest Owner.
