Mow, Don't Rake!

Mow Your Leaves for a Better Environment!

Big piles of leaves by the curb, a certain sign of autumn and lots of fun for kids to jump in. What could be wrong with that? Not to be the Grinch Who Stole Leaf Pile Jumping, but everything. Leaves in the gutter make their way to the creek where they decompose and cause nutrient bloom. Leaves in the gutter mean no leaves around the base of your trees where they provide an organic blanket for the trees during the winter. Leaves in the gutter mean you are wasting valuable nutrients for your lawn.

So, this year, take a tip from Winterthur, the spectacular DuPont gardens in Delaware and mow your leaves right on the lawn. From a Washington Post article

For more than 20 years, the gardeners at this expansive and famously leafy estate have been mowing leaves with (..) lawn mowers. The machines inhale the leaves, chop them into shreds and deposit them as the mower moves along. Engine noise is confined to the muted chug of the mower, not the incessant high-pitch whine of the leaf blower.

And there are no bags to unhook and drag anywhere, just a confetti-like litter left on the grass. Ripped into morsel-size pieces, the flakes melt away in two or three weeks as microbes and worms do their work of enriching the soil.

This process is endorsed by none other than the Scotts Fertilizer Company. On their website, they recommend you

Take the grass catcher off your mower and mow over the leaves on your lawn. You want to reduce your leaf clutter to dime-size pieces. You'll know you're done when about half an inch of grass can be seen through the mulched leaf layer. Once the leaf bits settle in, microbes and worms get to work recycling them. Any kind of rotary-action mower will do the job, and any kind of leaves can be chopped up. With several passes of your mower, you can mulch up to 18 inches of leaf clutter.

So, give your rake a rest, save the local government some money and help the environment all by mowing your leaves. It works for the Winterthur Estates and it will work for you. When spring arrives, you'll see great results. The leaf litter you mowed this fall will have disappeared. And your grass will look greener than ever.

And if your children need a pile to jump it, rake them one and when they are jumped out, put those leaves under your trees and around your shrubs. Free and beautiful mulch!

Norwood Park Day, 2011

Check out these photos from David Kathan of Norwood Park Day. Little Falls Ramblers were there to entertain as we removed vines from the trees and tackled the bush honeysuckle. Big thanks to everyone who came out for this annual event. We'll see you next year.

AU First Years Help Watershed

On August 24 and 25, Little Falls Watershed Alliance was honored to work with 14 new students from American University as part of their Freshman Service Experience. The students are all taking a Sustainable Earth class and, as part of the class, elected to spend two days volunteering in the watershed. On day one, they spent the morning labeling over 120 stormdrains around AU and passed out over 500 door hangers to the neighbors. The afternoon was spent in the Little Falls Stream Valley Park removing invasive porcelain berry vines from trees. The morning of day two was spent (in the rain) doing meadow restoration work near Westbrook Elementary School. A creek clean-up was scheduled for the afternoon, but severe thunderstorms ended the day early.

Thank you to Kayla Ma, AU student, resident adviser and TA for the group for organizing the work days. And thank you to the AU students for their hard work. It's amazing how much a group of people can get done in just a few hours. The trees in the park are grateful for the efforts. For pictures of students in action, visit our Flickr site - http://www.flickr.com/photos/lfwa/. Look for the Freshman Service Experience set.

Please contact us at info@LFWA.org if your group is interested in doing a special project. We have lots of places that need work.

Westbrook Meadow in Full Bloom

If you haven't gotten a chance to visit the beautiful restored meadow at Westbrook ES, take some time and go down there. It is in full bloom and some thing to see. I have never seen so many butterflies, bees and other pollinators in one place.

The meadow is the brainchild LFWA Vice President Lynnwood Andrews. She and her team of volunteers worked much of last summer and fall to remove the lawn that was along a tributary to the Little Falls Branch and replace it with native flowers, grasses and trees. Only Phase One is completed. In the fall, we will work on Phase Two, where we will plant trees and shrubs in the area close to the stream and also expand the planted area further down the stream.

Thank you to Westbrook ES school children, their parents and AU students who were among the many volunteers who worked on the project. A special and belated thank you to Becca Dozier and Sam Konig who interned for us last summer and did a lot of work on the project. The project was funded in part by a grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust.

Also in the works at Westbrook Elementary School is an outdoor classroom. We have already finished the first phase - labeling the native trees. The project is on hold until the Westbrook renovation is completed, but you can wander the campus and discover the names of the native trees. Look for the labels on Hackberries, Catalpa, Oaks and more!

Online Searchable Native Plant Database!

In the works of a fellow environmental steward -
"This is what we've all been waiting for!"
www.nativeplantcenter.net

From the press release:

The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, in partnership with and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Image Matters LLC, unveils the online Native Plant Center for the Chesapeake Bay Region. The online guide allows for the identification and selection of native plant species for habitat restoration in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, an effective method for reducing pollution in the Bay. Replacing portions of lawn areas and typical landscapes with native plants that suit local conditions reduces or eliminates the need for fertilizers and pesticides which wash into our streams, rivers and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay. Once in our waterways, these pollutants fuel the growth of excess algae, which clouds the water and threatens the health of fish, crabs and the entire Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

Users to the portal, www.nativeplantcenter.net, can search for native plants by name, plant type, sun exposure, soil texture and moisture, and even find native plants with the same shape, color, size or other characteristics as some of their favorite non-native plants. The portal also includes a geo-locator feature to identify plants suited to a user’s specific location. An online network for interacting with other Chesapeake Bay stewards is planned.

I have nothing more to add, except use it!
Sarah Morse

You Can be a Watershed Hero: Youth Summit

If you were at Sandy Point State Park on June 3, you would have seen 3,700 k-12 kids all engaged in learning about environmental issues. And at one of the environmental learning stations, you would have found four LFWA representatives deep in conversation with students about how they can be a watershed hero.

The students were there for a Youth Summit hosted by Maryland Green Schools, a MAEOE program that has certified over 190 schools in Maryland as "Green" for their commitment to environmental education at all levels of the curriculum and to changing their school environment to be a model of environmentally responsible behavior.

We focused on three areas at the LFWA learning booth. Toby and Abby Kathan had plant samples and talked about conquering alien and invasive plants. (Toby also designed two very cool watershed hero action figures for our display boards.) Greta Swanson had a hands-on trash sorting demonstration. Just by recycling, composting and donating used clothing, kids were able to reduce the bag of household trash from a huge bag to very small box full. And I presented a demonstration on how bay friendly landscaping controls stormwater run off. We made it rain on a impervious surface and then added sponges to simulate landscaping. We then made it rain again and squeezed the water out of the sponges. We were able to contain 75 percent of the run-off on the property.

btw, we have three Green Schools in our watershed - Westland Middle School and Westbrook and Bethesda Elementary Schools. Learn about the program at the MAEOE website - www.maeoe.org/greenschools/overview/index.php

I just got trained to be a Green School Leader so LFWA can mentor other schools in the watershed through the process. We're hoping that Somerset Elementary School will complete the application process next year. If you know of a school that is interested in applying, please have them contact me - stormwater@LFWA.org and I can help them get started.

Thank you to Toby, Abby and Greta for coming out and to Maryland Green Schools for inviting us.

Sarah Morse
Co-President

LFWA Member Fights for Creek-side Signage on Fecal Count

Just in from the Gazette:
Thank you to June Humbolt for lobbying hard to get signage at the Little Falls Branch with fecal bacteria contamination warnings.

Click here to read the Gazette Article (June 8, 2011).