Friends General Conference

Together we nurture the spiritual vitality of Friends

Our Conservation Landscaping

Public ContentAnyone can view this post
Our new landscaping, Fall 2017

Project Details

0 active task(s) remaining for this project

0 completed tasks

Stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces has been ruining our streams and the Chesapeake Bay. Turf grass is not much better than roofs at capturing rainwater. Before we all moved in, rain would get caught by trees and percolate into the ground, entering streams by way of the ground water. Now it all rushes into the streams in a big bolus, causing flooding which erodes the banks, topples the trees, and carries sediment down to the Bay where it smothers the sea grasses that are the basis of the ecosystem there. This has resulted in a huge dead zone at the mouth of the Potomac.

The solution to this problem is to retain as much of our stormwater as possible on our own properties. Thanks in part to a $3500 matching grant from the Virginia Conservation Asisistance Program (available to both individual and community landowners), we hired Lush Life Lanscapers to convert a substantial portion of our lawn to conservation landscaping, using only Virginia native plants. These plantings not only slow down run-off and clean the water, they also support wildlife, unlike turf grass, which is a European plant which is worse than useless in that regard.

Plants installed:

  • LADY FERN Athyrium filix-femina
  • CHRISTMAS FERN Polystichum acrostichoides
  • CREEPING PHLOX Phlox stolonifera
  • OAK SEDGE Carex pensylvanica
  • TUFTED HAIR GRASS Deschampsia caespitosa
  • LITTLE BLUESTEM Schizachyrium scoparium
  • WINTERBERRY Ilex verticillata ‘Jim Dandy’
  • WINTERBERRY Ilex verticillata ‘Red Sprite’
  • FRAGRANT SUMAC Rhus aromatica ‘Gro-Low’
  • ARROWWOOD VIBERNUM Vibernum dentatum
  • CHOKECHERRY Prunus virginiana ‘Canada Red’
  • PRAIRIE DROPSEED Sporobolus heterolepis
  • INKBERRY HOLLY Ilex glabra
  • CAROLINA ROSE Rosa Carolina
  • MEADOWSWEET Spirea alba

No Project Tasks Found

No currently active projects.

Share