The Sweet Hours Team, Pearl and Alan Seidman and Richard Love, undertook a three-part project to educate residents, engage students, and conduct a pull-and-plant to strengthen the riparian forest buffer on a stream segment in Dickinson. The area is part of Columbia Association’s open space path off of Sweet Hours Way near where Stream Waders and WSA annually measure water quality. The area is part of the Green Infrastructure Network, a protected hub and corridor for the vitality of macroinvertebrates, pollinators, insects, wildlife, and people.
The first part of the project was a door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor awareness campaign about the health of the streams that immediately feed into the Middle Patuxent River. Literature was provided to more than 90 single family homes—to those who answered their door and those who didn’t—about stream conditions, fertilizers and other chemicals, soil health, invasive plant replacement by natives, and Howard County and non-profit incentive programs and resources.
The team also engaged 9th grade biology students involved in the annual Watershed Report Card through the HCPSS Environmental Educator. Hands-on learning was meant to add knowledge about invasive identification and provide experience in invasive removal and replacement with natives while earning service credits.
Residents, students, and parents removed garlic mustard, Japanese barberry, and multiflora rose near the streambanks and on steep slopes leading to the stream. Twelve full-size yard waste bags were filled with invasives. Fifteen native trees and shrubs and dozens of perennials were planted to stabilize the streambanks, reduce sediment, absorb chemicals, and slow the flow of stormwater.
The pull-and-plant was immediately followed by a WSA-hosted barbecue with a highly attended non-point source demonstration. Information radiated; community came together. Students and residents will be invited in October 2024 to maintain and expand the stream buffer with CA-provided natives. Those using the paths will find inspiration for deer-resistant natives that can thrive, attract pollinators, and increase biodiversity—a virtuous hydrological and ecological loop.