American Tristan Shaw took carrying a tree seedling as a means to break the barrier in a way that helps to start communication with others, in order to talk about local plants and their importance.

Over the past three years, Tristan Shaw has been accustomed to carrying seedlings of local plants, which represent for him "emotional support," whenever he goes to any group event.

The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that what started as an experiment and a hobby to entertain Shaw himself during the difficult period of the Coronavirus pandemic quickly turned into a means to communicate with others, brought together by a passion rooted in family traditions.

One of the most important plants that Shaw likes to talk about is the oak tree as it is considered one of the essential species.

In 1978, Connor, Shaw's father, founded a plant nursery spanning five acres, in the village of Monee located south of Chicago, and when his children reached the age of four, they started helping him collect seeds to support his business activity.

Five years later, his nursery named "Possibility Place" began planting seedlings of only local trees and plants, from seeds collected from a 150-mile radius area, in the states of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and the activity has since expanded to include more than 55 acres, where about 60,000 trees thrive, and more than 18,000 tree seedlings are planted annually.

Kelsay Shaw, Tristan’s brother, says, "There aren't many people who grow completely local plants, and whose seeds are collected locally."

Kelsay Shaw, who is a botanist and a sales consultant at the nursery, emphasizes the importance of making the plants they grow available, "in many colors and diverse types as much as possible."

Kelsay Shaw adds that what attracts people to visit the nursery repeatedly is the unique experience it offers its customers.

He continues, "The experience is like going to a dairy farm and getting milk directly from the cow, instead of going to the store to buy it, and our customers can talk directly with the technicians who grow the plants, and they don't have to rely on information from other sources or from the internet; this is a different kind of purchasing experience."

While Kelsay Shaw sits on a wooden bench surrounded by a unique collection of plants, with diverse colors and textures, such as oak, elderberry, red buds, wild petunia flowers, prairie coneflower, daylilies, star flowers, and many others, and leaves gently fall from their branches.

He remembers the early stages of the project and says, "It wasn't a smart idea at first," to focus on local plants, due to the lack of information about them in the 1980s, but interest in them increased during the 1990s, and now the nursery produces 120 different types of local trees and plants."