Federation Blog

This past Saturday, over 40 volunteers helped to plant the Hillsmere Bioretention and Sand Seepage Wetland project at the corner of Great Lake Dr and Phipps Ln in Hillsmere.  It was a gorgeous day to get out and plant project that was several months in the making.  Below are before and after photos of the portion of the project that was converted from a dry "detention" basin to a regenerative stormwater conveyance.

Just last week the contractor broke ground for a sizable bioretention and sand seepage wetland project in the Hillsmere community that will help treat runoff before it gets into Lake Hillsmere.  The project is funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Unity Gardens, the Anne Arundel Watershed Stewards Academy, and the South River Federation.

 One of the first steps in constructing a bioretention project or rain garden is to over-excavate the site in preparation for a well-draining medium of sand, wood chips, and compost.  

 Once the basin has been excavated, it is backfilled with the planting/rain garden mix.  Below, we were able to work within the footprint of an existing dry detention area and convert it into a seepage wetland with relatively little earth moving.

 This project will be planted on May 15th.  If you'd like to help, please contact the Federation office at 410-224-3802 to RSVP.

Thanks to the generous support of the Chesapeake Bay Trust and several individuals living on Beard's Creek, the Federation will be installing over 10 rain gardens throughout the Beard's Creek watershed, from Edgewater Beach to Annapolis Landing.  Several more will be going in over the next week or so, but here are 3 recently installed gardens in Edgewater Beach, Shaded Section.

The first garden, below, captures runoff from a community roadway and infiltrates it into the ground.

The second garden has has a downspout diverted into it and will now capture water that had been running down the driveway into the road.

The third garden involved a curb cut, and now captures water that was previously delivered into a pipe system and discharged into the road.

The same day that some Federation volunteers were planting marsh grasses in London Towne, others were planting a recently installed rain garden designed to capture stormwater above Harness Creek. The project was funded with a generous mini grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust and is aimed at protecting tidal wetland habitat around Harness Creek.   The rain garden is approximately 675 sq/ft, and captures the runoff from several large homes near the waterfront.  

Below, Federation volunteers Kevin Green and John Flood plant wetland shrubs and herbaceous vegetation in the rain garden.

Below is a picture of the finished rain garden shortly after a storm.

Late last year we finished weeding and planting rain gardens that the Federation and church had installed at Riva Trace Baptist Church on Central Ave (Rt. 214).  This spring we get to reap the rewards.

The area is dominated by very clay soils, which are common throughout Edgewater, and as a result, the gardens as initially installed took some time to drain.  This led to some of the plants that had originally been installed rotting, and weeds, like Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) moving in to the beds.  After a vigorous weeding, Federation volunteers installed plants that can tolerate wetter feet, such as common rush (Juncus effusus), three-square (Scirpus americanus), and blue flag iris (Iris versicolor).  As you can see below, these species, and several other species of rushes which have recruited naturally on the site, appear to be pretty happy.