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
