March is a great time to dig into our gardens and landscapes. How are our “gardens” and “landscapes” similar? Both equally entail soil, water and vegetation. Equally aid the biodiversity of insects and wildlife. The two can profit from our stewardship.
We frequently believe of gardens as prepared and tended regions to mature greens, flowers, shrubs, and trees. Landscapes, on the other hand, may possibly be larger sized normal regions and viewscapes that are prepared and unplanned, non-public and general public, tended and untended.
So gardens are, effectively, small-scale landscapes.
What does the word “treasure” suggest to you? Something that you worth? Actions that you take to safeguard that valued something — how you “treasure” your “treasure”?
“Treasure” implies the notion of riches. Gardens and landscapes are a form of riches, a unique kind of “green” that’s not purchased and sold for earnings, saved in a lender or jewellery box, or utilized to obtain factors. You can treasure gardens and landscapes outside of their financial price, for their significance to your personal health and quality of everyday living and to your community’s nicely-becoming and sustainability.
Frederick County is fortuitous to be home to lots of gardens and treasured landscapes, “places that stand out … with a lot of inspiring, effective, and in a natural way numerous lands,” in accordance to the Sugarloaf Treasured Landscape Administration Approach. These landscapes “enhance, and in some cases protect, the purely natural, cultural, and historic characteristics” of our property county, for each the Livable Frederick Implementation Plan, and url our communities jointly.
In fact, county land use planners have recognized several locations that can advantage from “focused awareness,” including the Sugarloaf Mountain region, the Middletown Valley and the Catoctin Creek space.
And local weather change is adding urgency to these county attempts to protect and sustain these and other area and regional landscapes, effective lands, and all-natural methods.
Definitely, you know of some gardens and landscapes that can benefit from your personal, focused interest. Early spring is a good time to dig in!
At house: If you have outside place with some soil and sunshine, regardless of whether a balcony or yard, you can plant and sustain your personal back garden — your own treasured landscape — in pots, planters, borders and elevated beds.
Farther afield: If you have space in a local community backyard, or many others need support with theirs, you can prolong your treasured landscape endeavours to include these gardens, as well.
Community: If your neighborhood, college, church or local park has a Inexperienced Crew, pollinator backyard garden or tree-planting task, you can function with other volunteers to plant and care for people shared landscapes.
You might be interested to know that in help of these treasured landscapes and gardens, last April, the Maryland senate passed Home Bill 322, which compels homeowners’ associations (HOAs) and other businesses to enable reduced-impact landscaping, such as rain gardens, indigenous plant gardens, pollinator gardens and xeriscaping in subdivisions. The legislation specifically forbids HOAs to call for that cultivated vegetation [in gardens] consist in total or in portion of turf grass, in accordance to an report posted on the Indigenous Plant Society web site.
Blanca Poteat is a Frederick County Learn Gardener.
