Get involved with
BayScapes
A homeowner's guide to designing your property
Bayscapes include
Here are
some environmentally-healthy designs you can implement into your own yard.
BENEFICIAL PLANT
It’s not always easy to find at a garden center but
you’ll see this native plant along most of Virginia’s fields and roadways —
the Eastern red cedar — Juniperus virginiana. Its reddish-brown peeling bark, rich
blue-green fine foliage and pale blue-green fruit on female plants are beautiful sights to
behold. Plus, songbirds adore them — eating their berries, nesting in them and taking
shelter during storms. Cold hardy in zones 6-9, the Eastern red cedar prefers full sun,
tolerates part shade. It needs a large space to grow, slowly reaching 40-50 feet tall and
8-20 feet wide; it can be pruned. It tolerates most soils, needs little if any extra
fertilizer and medium moisture. Eastern red cedar makes an excellent windbreak, screening
or tall hedge plant; it tolerates salt spray and wind. Caution: It hosts cedar apple rust,
so do not plant it near apples or crabapples; bagworms can bother it, so watch for them
and handpick for control.
FREE FAX
For a free fax of facts about the York Watershed Council
and the challenges the watershed faces, call the Daily Press 1-Line, 928-1111, category
4766.
INFORMATION
Soil & Water Conservation Districts included in the
York River Watershed include Colonial, Culpeper, Hanover-Caroline, Thomas Jefferson, Three
Rivers, Tidewater and Tri-County/City. The watershed council’s work is supported by
the Center for Coastal Management and Policy at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science,
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay,
Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Department which administers the Chesapeake Bay
Preservation Act and other corporate sponsors.
For more information about BayScapes and the York River
Watershed, visit www.yorkwatershed.org; call or
fax (804) 769-0841; e-mail billy@mpra.org.
GET CERTIFIED
Use BayScapes principles in your lawn and gardens and have
your property receive a special BayScapes certificate. The five principles of BayScapes
are: practice conservation landscaping, conserve water, create diversity, use beneficial
plants and plan for the long term. To register and learn more about the special BayScapes
certificate, visit www.yorkwatershed.org; to
register by telephone, call the Tidewater Soil & Water Conservation District office,
(804) 693-3562, Ext. 115. Leave your name, address, daytime phone number and e-mail
address.
Great to get: To get free full-color
copies of the homeowner’s guide to designing your property with a helpful list of
beneficial plants, call (804) 693-3562, Ext. 115.
VISIT DEMO GARDENS
BayScapes demonstration gardens can be visited at these
locations: Great Bridge Lock Park in Chesapeake, Q-Area Lagoon at the Commander Naval
Station in Norfolk, NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach, Heron Lake Community in Virginia Beach,
Virginia Power Yorktown Plant, Lake Anna State Park and U.S. Post Office in Herndon.
LEARNING LINE
Aquifer — A storage area for water
between underground layers of rock or sediment.
Estuary — A coastal aquatic system
formed through the mixing of freshwater from rivers and saltwater from the ocean with the
defining feature being the fluctuation of salinity in the water.
Groundwater — (1) Water that is found
in the saturated rock and soil formations. It may be either consolidated bedrock such as
limestone or sandstone, or unconsolidated deposits of sand, silt or gravel. Water is
stored in void spaces within the rock or soil. (2) Water contained within the earth’s
surface that has penetrated from precipitation and from infiltration by streams, ponds and
lakes.
Source: Glossary at www.yorkwatershed.org
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