Landscape Planning and Management

Wednesday Water Webinars - Recorded

Introduction to the use, planning and building of rain gardens.

A conservation landscape is a garden that improves water quality, promotes and preserves native species, and provides wildlife habitat. Conservation landscaping replaces hard surfaces or turf grass of a traditional lawn with native plants. There are many social and environmental benefits that result from installing a conservation landscape.

Most Maryland residents live within a half-mile of a storm drain, stream or river.  Most of those waterways eventually drain into the Chesapeake Bay. 

Looking for sustainable landscaping ideas? Our landscape design templates and plant lists offer ideas for adding native plants around townhomes and single-family homes.

Master Gardener, Bonnie Pavlak attended the book signing for OpenSpaces, Sacred Places, by Tom Stoner and Carolyn Rapp, held at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She was inspired by the book to create a peaceful space in Kinder Farm Park as a Master Gardener Project. The purpose of the Woodland Garden in Kinder Farm Park is to create a place of beauty in nature for people to sit, relax, meditate and be refreshed.

The goal of the Master Gardener project at Tawes is to promote sustainable and environmentally healthy gardening practices while educating the public about the advantages of planting native Maryland and pollinator-friendly plants. One of our key areas of interest is the identification and removal of invasive species.

Over many years, this project has worked to reclaim abandoned gardens and supplement the efforts of Senior Center volunteer gardeners. The Master Gardener team and local volunteers have recovered the land from succession, controlled the weeds and brambles, found many original plantings, and added native flowers and trees.

The purpose of the Mulch Education Project is for Master Gardeners to develop educational materials, write articles, offer presentations and demonstrations to educate the public about mulching best practices.  The project will also provide information about techniques to mitigate the damage to trees caused by improper mulching.