NeighborSpace kicked off Earth Week bright and early last Saturday at Chestnut Park in Turner Station. We joined forces with Turner Station Conservation Teams to give the park a thorough spring cleanup. Volunteers of all ages pulled 6 bags’ worth of non-native invasives and mulched two of the beds. Thank you to our partner Live Green for donating mulch again this year!

Thanks to a Keep Maryland Beautiful grant, the Gwynn Oak Community Association was able to partner with NeighborSpace and Blue Water Baltimore to host an all-day Earth Week event at Carroll Watkins Park. Activities included a tree giveaway, seed bomb tutorial, and a bug blitz.

Master Gardeners were available to provide information about native plants and offer gardening advice. The Natural History Society of Maryland’s Lepidoptera Club shared their knowledge of native butterflies and moths.

For free native perennials and species-specific advice, visitors could stop by the native plant table and talk to Victor Bennett, who owns a native plant nursery and had a variety of perennials and shrubs for sale. For those who wished to express their love of the natural world in a different way, local artist Jani of Jord’s Hoard had a wide range of jewelry and ceramic items for sale.

To close out the day, we planted 200 plugs of native perennials to fill in the beds at the back of the park. Together with the new path, rain garden and swales, which were recently re-installed with United Way grant funding, Carroll Watkins Park is all set for a busy, colorful spring and summer!

NeighborSpace staff and volunteers then celebrated Earth Day on Monday by hosting two stewardship events. For the third consecutive year, a team of Whiting-Turner employees weeded and mulched at Adelaide Bentley Park in Towson. At Tollgate Wyndham Preserve in Owings Mills, the Maryvale Preparatory School freshman class spent the morning removing graffiti and non-native invasives and picking up trash. Both parks are now in great shape!

The Earth Week fun continues! Join us at Ridgely Manor Park in Towson on Friday afternoon to participate in a bio blitz with the goal of finding and identifying as many local plant and animal species as possible. This family-friendly activity is part of the City Nature Challenge, an international (friendly) competition that engages residents of cities such as Baltimore in documenting nature to better understand urban biodiversity.
If you would like to learn more about the historical significance of Baltimore County’s waterways, come to Dundalk on Saturday to listen to historian Dr. Glenn Johnston speak about his research for the Bear Creek Heritage Trail project.
Finally, on Sunday morning, NeighborSpace is partnering with Baltimore Bird Club to host a birding walk at Volz Park in Middle River. 

These activities and more can be found on the NeighborSpace event calendar. We hope to see you at an event soon!