Mission
We do this by thoughtfully selecting and nurturing plants, creating ecologically-rich habitat, and shaping spaces that invite people to learn, create, and connect with nature and one another.
A Retrospective and a Look Ahead
We’re perched on roughly ~200 acres in the Finger Lakes of New York—a landscape with a history that stretches well beyond Flock.
In late fall 2020, after two years of searching for land in the Finger Lakes, we found our first 90 acres here and began the process of making it home. Six years later, we had the opportunity to acquire the primarily forested land directly adjacent to Flock, bringing the property to nearly 200 acres.
The land has taken on many lives over the years. For 28 years, portions of it were home to a well-respected garden center and container nursery. Before that, much of the property appears to have been largely fallow, with a single condemned house remaining on the land in the 1970s.
The forests tell another part of the story. Much of the woodland consists of relatively even-aged stands of hemlock, maple, and oak—roughly 60–70 years old—suggesting that these areas were cleared at some point for marginal grazing and lumber harvest, likely in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tucked among them, however, are individual trees and pockets of older forest on the steepest slopes that seem to have escaped that cycle of clearing. Some have been estimated to be 200–300 years old (Mike DeMunn, Onödowá’ga:’ forester, conversation, 2021).
So Flock is not a landscape untouched by people. It is a landscape that has continually changed with them.
Our role now is simply the next chapter in that story: to steward the land toward greater biodiversity, resilience, and ecological richness, while creating a place where people can learn, create, work, play, and connect—with nature and with one another.
Summer Rayne grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania surrounded by farms, fields, and forests, developing an early fascination with the natural world and a desire to share it creatively. That curiosity led her into fashion, food, and entertainment, where she became a pioneer of eco-conscious fashion and collaborated with brands including Timberland, Levi’s, Toyota, and Pirelli.
She later studied environmental science and entomology at Cornell University, deepening her understanding of the living systems that had fascinated her since childhood. Today, she continues to explore the intersection of plants, ecology, creativity, and communication through Plant One On Me and Flock.
At Flock, Summer brings together her lifelong curiosity about the natural world with her passion for storytelling, gardening, and ecological stewardship. Flock is, in many ways, an extension of the questions she has been exploring throughout her life: How can we live more closely with nature—and how can we inspire others to do the same?
Sander grew up in a small town in the Netherlands, where he developed an early appreciation for making things by hand, figuring out how things work, and finding creative solutions to problems. His interests first led him toward architecture and carpentry before eventually taking him into motion graphics and visual communication.
Today, Sander is a motion designer and visual storyteller whose work helps people bring ideas to life. His skills have been sought out by brands including Google, IKEA, Squarespace, Strava, and Airbnb, among others. He also co-created BlendFest, a popular motion design festival, with a group of friends.
At Flock, those worlds naturally converge. Sander brings his designer’s eye and maker’s mindset to everything from building and landscape projects to documenting the ongoing evolution of the property. He is also the camera and creative force behind the Plant One On Me and Flock YouTube channels, where he helps share the stories, experiments, and ideas growing out of this place.
Joey is a Canadian-born photographer and director whose work has taken him around the world in pursuit of stories, people, and places that capture his curiosity. Drawn to adventure and ever-changing environments, he has built a career around environmental portraiture and visual storytelling, working with clients including National Geographic Channel, the History Channel, Canon, the U.S. Army, Summit Entertainment, Lavazza Coffee, and others.
His personal projects have taken him far beyond the studio, from documenting ascetics and endangered cultures to photographing guerrilla fighters in Kurdistan and exploring the diverse cultures of Ethiopia. His work has appeared on major billboards and in publications including Vanity Fair, The Sunday Times, and The Atlantic.
As one of Flock’s founding partners, Joey brought this same spirit of curiosity, exploration, and visual storytelling to the creation of the place. While his role at Flock has evolved over time, his contribution to its beginnings remains an important part of the story of how Flock came to be.
Collaboration
Espoma Organic is a fifth-generation business whose mission is to develop the finest organic gardening products that work in harmony with nature, grow beautiful gardens, and make a greener world for the future.
We’ve been partnering with Espoma for nearly a decade, using many of their organic soil and fertilizers throughout the gardens here at Flock. Over the years, we’ve come to share their belief that growing beautiful, healthy plants can go hand in hand with working in harmony with nature—and that organic gardening should be accessible to everyone, whether you’re tending a garden outdoors or growing plants inside your home.
ArcheWild is a restoration nursery whose mission is to restore maximum landscape function by supplying and installing diverse, ecoregion-specific native plants with wild genetics.
Their approach to native plants and ecological restoration closely aligns with our own efforts to build a more biodiverse and resilient landscape at Flock. That shared vision is what led us to offer a portion of our land as one of ArcheWild’s operational Founder’s Plots. Through their seed collection, plant growing, and ecological expertise, they’re helping us bring more of Flock’s vision to life—while bringing the benefits of regionally adapted native plants to landscapes beyond our own.
Spaces
In 2021, we began the long and rewarding process of reshaping the landscape at Flock—creating gardens and planting areas designed not only to be beautiful, but to support wildlife, restore ecological function, and knit the landscape together.
Since then, we’ve embarked on nearly two dozen garden and landscape projects, each shaped by the unique conditions of the land. Some are experiments: opportunities to try something new, observe what happens, and learn from the results. We share many of these experiments and discoveries on our YouTube channel.
More than 4,000 different kinds of plants have now found a place across the landscape, nearly 40 percent of them native to New York State and the High Allegheny Plateau Ecoregion. Together, these plantings are helping us create a landscape that is more diverse, resilient, and alive. Our goal is to work with the land, discover what can thrive here, and create beautiful, useful, and ecologically rich spaces that can be enjoyed by the people and wildlife who call Flock home.
Once a nine-acre container nursery, this landscape has been transformed into a diverse meadow designed to support insects and the wider ecosystem. After removing nearly 96 tons of nursery debris and clearing thousands of invasive shrubs in 2021, we prepared the site and introduced more than 80 kinds of plants, primarily native species. The resulting meadow provides food and habitat not only for pollinators, but also for the many herbivorous insects that depend on native plants—and the birds and other wildlife that depend on them.
Following the natural slope of the land, the Orchard uses a more traditional permaculture-inspired layout to help slow and capture rainwater while growing a diverse mix of perennial plants. Planted between 2022 and 2025, it brings together familiar fruits like apples, pears, cherries, currants, and gooseberries with native fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, including serviceberry, chokeberry, persimmon, and elderberry. Less expected additions, from wild licorice to Camassia and ground cherries, make this more than a place to grow food—it’s a living experiment in bringing horticulture, ecology, and abundance together.
What began as a portion of front lawn in 2021 has become a richly diverse garden designed to support the many creatures that depend on flowering plants. Home to more than 350 kinds of plants, including species and cultivars, the garden features a succession of blooms from April through October, with a particular emphasis on native plants and the specialist insects that rely on them. We leave plants standing through winter for seeds, shelter, and overwintering habitat, while mason bee houses, frog and toad shelters, and shallow watering stations provide additional resources. It’s a garden designed not just for flowers, but for the intricate web of life they sustain.
A series of distinct but interconnected gardens surround the Common House, or “The Roost,” softening the edges of its elevated deck and nestling the cedar-clad home into the landscape. Unusual fruiting groundcovers and fragrant flowers offer discoveries for both people and insects, while the plantings create a natural transition between indoors and out. Designed as an extension of the house, these gardens invite people to step outside, linger, and take in one of Flock’s most expansive views across Half Lake and the rolling hills beyond.
The Memorial Garden honors the former landowner, who ran the nursery here for 28 years and left behind a legacy of unusual trees and shrubs. Rather than erase that history, we built upon it, creating a garden inspired by his love of plants. Nearly 300 kinds of plants surround two existing anchors—a blue fir and a red Japanese maple—with a palette of blues, reds, and purples. Layers of low-growing groundcovers and compact conifers create a richly textured, almost underwater landscape, reminiscent of a living coral reef that rewards a closer look.
Inspired in part by Sander’s Dutch roots, the Stinzen Lawn reimagines a traditional stretch of grass as a seasonal tapestry of spring-flowering bulbs. Planted in 2021 and 2022, more than 80,000 bulbs emerge from as early as February through May, bringing color to the landscape and providing an early source of food for bees and other pollinators. Over time, the bulbs will naturalize and multiply, becoming an increasingly abundant part of the landscape. The planting was also a community effort, bringing together friends, fellow gardeners, landscapers, and members of Cornell University to help bring this ambitious vision to life.
Landscape
Spanning approximately 2.5 acres, Half Lake is Flock’s largest body of water, with much of its shoreline left to grow naturally into a mosaic of native sedges, rushes, grasses, and flowering plants. Since 2022, we’ve been enriching these edges with native wetland species, including plants that are rare, threatened, or no longer found in parts of their historic range. By removing invasive shrubs and encouraging these plants to establish, we hope Half Lake can become a living wetland garden and a source of seed for the other ponds and wet areas across Flock—helping these important plants find a foothold in the wider landscape.
Garden
Installed in fall 2023 by local stonemasons at O’Brien Masonry, the Fossil Footpath winds through the Herb, Pollinator, and Shrubbery Gardens, offering new ways to experience the plantings. But look a little closer, and you’ll discover fossils embedded among the stones, from the Finger Lakes region and beyond. Each one is a small discovery waiting to be made—so keep your eyes down as you wander and see how many you can find.
Tucked into just one-eighth of an acre, seven interconnected gardens surround the Meadow House with the relaxed abundance of a traditional cottage garden, blending familiar favorites with native plants, edible crops, and cut flowers. Climbing roses and clematis, terracotta pots, espaliered apple trees, and raspberries bring layers of color, fragrance, and seasonal interest, while rustic willow wattles and weathered logs lend the spaces a homespun charm. And keep an eye out for Farro and Flax, the resident ducks, who happily patrol the beds in search of slugs, snails, and other tasty garden visitors.
Once a hillside dominated by reed canary grass, this small meadow behind the Meadow House has become a living experiment in restoring native plant diversity. Over three years, we tested different approaches—from solarizing sections with tarps and planting native plugs to direct seeding and installing native meadow sod—to discover what would work best on the slope. The results are still evolving, but by September, blooming Liatris and Solidago draw dozens of monarchs and hundreds of other pollinating insects. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best way to learn what works is to experiment, observe, and try again.
Structures
For nearly 30 years before Flock, the land and buildings were home to a beloved plant nursery known for its collection of rare and unusual container-grown plants. In 2022, we began the process of reimagining these spaces—renovating the existing buildings to sit more naturally within the landscape while giving them new purposes that reflect the evolving story and spirit of Flock.
This 600-square-foot former nursery office has been reimagined as a quiet retreat overlooking the meadow and cottage gardens. Hand-troweled clay walls and ceilings, a spa-like bathroom finished in tadelakt and limestone, and warm, natural materials give the interior a tactile, understated character. Sander designed the cabinetry and built a custom banquette, which sits alongside thoughtfully sourced furniture and artisan finds, while reverse board-and-batten hemlock siding connects the exterior to the region’s agricultural heritage. With patios opening onto the gardens and meadow, the Meadow House now serves as a home, studio, and guest house—a small sanctuary shaped by craftsmanship and its surrounding landscape.
Under Construction
Known as “The Roost,” this 2,000-square-foot cedar-clad house was once home to the owners of the original plant nursery. We’re reimagining it as a welcoming residence for future Flock Residents and Fellows, with two bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, and an open layout that brings together a kitchen, living room, mudroom, apothecary, and cinema room. A wraparound porch offers sweeping views of Half Lake and the surrounding countryside, creating a place to settle in, connect, and feel at home in the landscape.
Designed and built by Sander and Summer Rayne in 2025, the Chicken Coop blends Craftsman-style details with a subtle Japanese influence to create a thoughtfully designed home for Summer Rayne’s rescue chickens. The insulated roost features microcement walls, a pine-clad ceiling, and custom finishes that bring the comforts and craftsmanship of a human home to an unexpected setting. Because even the chickens deserve a little architectural care.