Spring has come to the the Little Falls watershed and our habitat restoration projects are blooming! The Virginia Blue Bells are mostly done, as are the Red Bud trees, but we have Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea), Golden Alexander (Zizia Aurea), Bluestar (Amsonia), and Woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata) and even some Paw Paws (Asimina triloba) in full glory. The ferns are out, and the grasses are greening up. It’s still early spring, so there will be lots more to report.
Falmouth Road Habitat Restoration Project
The Falmouth Road project, master-minded by Celia Martin, began in 2022 as an attempt to restore native plants to the intersection of Falmouth Road and Massachusetts Avenue in Bethesda with the permission of the Maryland State Highway Administration. Lauren Greenberger, Daybreak Farms, developed the landscaping design and supervised the planting. Hundreds of volunteers have kept up the project, weeding, removing bamboo, and watering. Learn about the project HERE.
Green Acres Habitat Project
Located along the banks of the (unfortunately) channelized Little Falls Branch, the Green Acres project is celebrating its tenth year! What started as a simple pollinator garden on the paper road between Wakefield and Yorktown in Bethesda, has grown to include trees, a woodland wildflower habitat, and a huge invasive removal effort freeing not only trees, but Rough horsetail, one of the oldest plants in Maryland. You could find it during the Carboniferous period (280-345 million years ago). Learn about the project HERE.
westbrook Elementary School Habitat Restoration
Our oldest project located at the corner of the Westbrook Elementary School grounds was installed in 2010 by Lynnwood Andrews with the help of fourth grade students from the school (and a lot of other volunteers). Lynnwood was concerned that the wildflowers that she knew as a child were disappearing, so she removed the grass and invasive vines along the Little Falls Branch and planted hundreds of native flowers, shrubs and a few trees that the students grew from seed. In 2023, a water main burst in the middle of the project destroying much of the area. But in spring of 2024, WSSC did a beautiful job replanting and the garden is blooming again. Learn about Lynnwood’s efforts HERE.
These projects were made possible by donations from our members and thousands of hours of labor by our volunteers who plant, who water, who weed, and more. We are also grateful to the support of local businesses who contributed materials - fencing, mulch, and more and to the Chesapeake Bay Trust who awarded us a small grant in 2010 to buy plants for the Westbrook Elementary School project. We are particularly grateful to our partners - Montgomery County Public School, MDOT, and SHA who give us permission to work on their lands.