Jennifer Roth wakes up every morning around 3 AM. She studies her online Spanish lessons for a couple of hours until just before sunrise. Then she puts her boots on and walks outside her house with her three dogs to make her daily circuit around the 20 acres she has calls home in Winlock, WA, rain or shine, to watch magic unfolding.

When Jennifer first viewed her property, it was covered with blackberry brambles, trash, dilapidated vehicles, and even hazardous waste, but she fell head over heels in love with its potential. She envisioned something much bigger than just a place to sleep at night and to cook food and to keep objects. She thought “Here’s a little corner of the Earth that I can make better.”

And she has been doing the work to turn that once-neglected corner into a place that offers ecological, aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual abundance every single day for seven years. And boy, does it show.

Jennifer originally planned on turning a large portion of her space into pasture land for cattle, as she has always been interested in raising animals. But after spending years clearing invasive species, cleaning up trash, building gardens, and tending to the large emerging grassy area, she felt like something was missing. She wondered what it might be like to grow trees instead of grass.

Her close friends, Christmas tree farmers who had often helped her clean up the property, first introduced her to the idea of planting redwoods. The more she learned, the more she grew enamored with the prospect of a fast-growing, resilient tree that could live to be 2,000 years old and offer enough carbon sequestration to offset an entire lifetime of emissions.

She found PropagationNation just in time to sign up for the 2025 Test Plot Grant Initiative program*. While our goal was to collaborate with experienced tree farmers through the test plot program, Jennifer’s infectious enthusiasm and tenacity shined through in her application, and we decided to make an exception. Jennifer received 360 redwoods, which she planted by herself in just two days. She then went on to plant 80 giant sequoias.

While reflecting on her decision to plant trees, she said, “What better use of a piece of land could there be? The goal is to leave this piece of ground that is in your care temporarily better than I found it. And trees? They’re it. They’re the way to do it. They do nothing but improve air quality, soil quality, and the quality of your life, literally and figuratively.”

As for redwoods, specifically, Jennifer is amazed already by the growth she is able to see with the trees she has planted. It seems likeevery morning on her property walkabout, there is something new to find. “They’re extremely fast growing- you get that dopamine hit of immediate gratification. You see the growth right away and you get to look forward to them growing 5-6 inches a year so you get to see progress in your lifetime,” she says.

Hearing Jennifer talk about those daily visits with each of her trees evokes a mindful, almost spiritual reflection:

“It’s part of our morning routine, but it’s also fun to be aware of the seasons changing and how things are blooming and that the sun’s up a little earlier this morning. And it helps you get out of your own head a little bit. Just being reminded that your problems, while they can be stressful, just walking around and noticing things blooming or growing or changing as the seasons change helps put things into perspective. For me, it makes my life better, it makes everything more manageable. Nothing can out-worry my feeling of wellbeing when I see the progress of the trees growing and just knowing my problems are so small next to a tree seedling that could potentially live for 2,000 years.”

Despite not having children herself, she thinks of the future for the kids of the people she knows, and their kids, and takes pride in serving them. In thinking about the far future, what the land she is stewarding might look like in hundreds of years, she retorts, “No one will know that I was here, but those trees will be here because of me.”

But in the meantime, the trees are here for Jennifer. “I love them, and I love being around them. I’ll sit out on my chair in the evening and just watch them and imagine them growing,” she says. “It helps me be present. It helps with my mental health.”

In reference to the immense amount of love and work she has put into planting and caring for the trees, she simply states, “It’s the right thing to do. It feels good. And I like to feel good.”

 

 

 

 

*As of June 6, 2o25 applications for our 2026 Test Plot Grant Initiative program are not yet open. Sign up for our mailing list to stay updated on future openings and other PropagationNation news.