The New Year will soon be here and what better thing to do for the mind, health and the environment but take an afternoon walk in the woods on the first day of the new year.
Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve off Regina Road near Lancaster offers one of the best nature walks in coastal Virginia with numerous trails and various ecological communities ranging from a rare coastal plain seepage swamp to mixed pine-hardwood forest, said Northern Neck Audubon Society president Kevin Howe. It is also home to a colony of Virginia’s earliest blooming plant, skunk cabbage, a plant found only in swampy areas of the eastern U.S. from Canada to North Carolina and west to Minnesota.
“Skunk cabbage is typically blooming in Cabin Swamp by January 1….
