stormwater management

Sustaining Hope: How Will the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Weather the Next Helene?

Maryland Grows4 Comments

The news out of the southeastern US following Hurricane Helene is heart-wrenching. Up to a foot of heavy rain fell on saturated soils across mountainous western North Carolina, in the fallout of a hurricane that made landfall in Florida but dumped 40 trillion gallons of rainwater across several states. 

Aerial photo of Tropical Storm Helene flood damage in North Carolina. Photo credit: Sgt. 1st Class Leticia Samuels, US Army National Guard

Inland communities were not spared from this coastal storm that sent torrents of water through mountain towns, leaving a wake of wreckage in its path. Roads, bridges, and buildings have collapsed under the force of debris-laden flood waters throughout the region. 

Airlift rescues and supply drops are underway, but many residents remain cut off, and countless are yet unaccounted for across the region at the time of writing. The Federal government has issued Major Disaster declarations for areas of North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Marylanders hold all affected by this powerful storm in our hearts and stand ready to support their recovery.

Extreme precipitation events like this are becoming a new norm, brought about by increasingly powerful storms carrying more water, driven by the heat energy of warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures. Hurricanes and tropical storms forming over warmer waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico contain more energy and hold more moisture, with the potential to bring record amounts of rainfall anywhere throughout the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and New England regions. Tropical Storm Helene reminds us again that inland and upland regions can still be devastated by coastal storms. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed is no exception.

Animated satellite image of Hurricane Helene. Source: NWS/NOAA

It is with all of this and more on my mind and in my heart that I assume the new role of Residential Landscape Ecologist at University of Maryland Extension. I look forward to advancing green strategies that reduce flood risk and pollution from stormwater runoff into the Chesapeake Bay while enhancing biodiversity. This work is vital to addressing the most extreme impacts of climate change like floods, heavy precipitation, heat waves, and drought. We can do it in ways that reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well and bring a great deal of joy to our lives and communities while we’re at it. The Maryland Bay-Wise Landscape Management Program encourages widespread and strategic uptake of nature-based practices that improve water quality and reduce flood risk.

In this position, I will work closely with university colleagues, agency and NGO partners, and Maryland residents to promote sustainable landscape practices that contribute to a healthy and climate-resilient Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Efforts to retain, slow down, and filter stormwater using native plants and landscaping strategies like rain gardens, pollinator gardens, forest conservation, and riparian buffer strips can help reduce the overall amount of water running off from lawns and impervious surfaces like rooftops and asphalt. Allowing more rainwater to be absorbed where it falls reduces and delays flood peaks downstream while ensuring cleaner water for aquatic species and habitat for beneficial insects, declining songbird populations, and other Maryland wildlife.

Here in this space, I look forward to sharing perspectives on emerging science and trends in climate-resilient sustainable landscapes, environmental horticulture practices and gardening for wildlife, and dialogues with bearers of traditional knowledge – getting my own hands dirty along the way as I share some of my personal experiences with conservation landscaping in my wild corner of the Earth. 

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to join you and my Extension colleagues on this important journey, as there is vital work to be done to ensure a healthy and sustainable future for Maryland communities.

If you would like to help those impacted by Hurricane Helene, Charity Navigator has compiled this list of highly rated organizations providing relief assistance for those affected. Emergency resources for those in the impacted area and their families can be found at FEMA.gov.

By Stacy Small-Lorenz, Agent, Residential Landscape Ecology, University of Maryland Extension.

Maryland gardeners are adapting to climate change

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How are Maryland gardeners adapting their gardens and green spaces to climate change? We posed this question to our colleagues in the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and several of them shared examples of everything from composting and food gardening to planting trees and native plants, installing rain gardens, and more.

Action on climate change is needed on a large scale, and our individual actions at home and in our communities all add up too. Check out our Story Map showcasing the variety of ways Marylanders are adapting their green spaces with climate change and sustainability in mind. Then take our quick poll at the end of the Story Map and let us know: Are you doing climate-resilient gardening?

Screen shot of the climate-resilient gardening story map

View the Story Map

Learn more:

By Christa K. Carignan, Coordinator, Digital Horticulture Education, University of Maryland Extension Home & Garden Information Center. Read more posts by Christa.

Dealing with standing water in your yard

Maryland Grows15 Comments

standing water in the yard
Deal with standing water by adding topsoil or planting vegetation that prefers boggy areas. Photo: UME / Ask an Expert

Q: Our backyard has very low spots where the water ends up after heavy rains. How do I deal with this? I would like to plant a garden of shrubs and perennials but don’t think many can take that much water. Red maples and birch seem happy, but the hydrangeas I planted last year all died. It gets quite a bit of sun.

Answer: Most plants will not tolerate sitting in standing water or saturated, soggy soil for long periods. You may be able to add one to two inches of soil to fill in low spots or raise the grade enough so that water will run off better or at least not accumulate there. A steep grade is not necessary or desirable because in dry years you do want the water to sink into the soil and down to plant roots.

This past year we had abnormal rainfall — about twice the average. Many people lost plants in areas where they had grown for years but were now under water too much for the plants to survive. The maple you have may be red maple, which is happy even in a bog; the birch is probably a river birch. Hydrangeas love moist soil, but cannot tolerate standing water. In saturated soils, the water pushes out the oxygen roots need. Eventually, the plant drowns, unless it is a plant adapted to saturated soil, i.e. a bog.

You may have a good location for a rain garden. Many plants love this environment — some stunning natives in particular, such as button bush and clethra. (Both are also butterfly magnets!) Take a look at the University of Maryland Extension webpage on stormwater practices.

Don’t get bogged down (no pun intended!) with details. Just plant what likes “wet feet.” Native plants are the best. For more plant choices, look at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s excellent publication, “Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping: Chesapeake Bay Watershed.” In the lists, ‘Plants for Freshwater Wetlands and Other Wet Sites’ should be helpful. (There is also the equivalent online database, http://www.nativeplantcenter.net/.).

You may not have standing water continuously in the future. However, it is predicted that we can expect a lot more wet years and extreme weather ahead because of climate change. A rain garden is a smart way to handle this, as long as this spot does not hold water all summer (and breed mosquitoes). When you install a rain garden, the plant roots will be pulling in the water and drying up the low area, too.

By Ellen Nibali, Horticulturist, University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center. Ellen writes the Garden Q&A for The Baltimore Sun.

Have a plant or insect question? University of Maryland Extension’s experts have answers! Send your questions and photos to Ask Extension.

5 Steps to a Chesapeake Bay-Friendly Landscape

Maryland Grows6 Comments

By changing a few simple landscape practices, you can help keep Maryland waterways healthy.

chesapeake bay watershed
Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Photo: Chesapeake Bay Program

Most Maryland residents live within a half-mile of a storm drain, stream or river. Most of those waterways eventually drain into the Chesapeake Bay.  What we do to maintain our own landscapes can affect the health of our local waterways (drainage ditches, streams, and rivers), the Chesapeake Bay, and our environment.

By changing a few simple landscape practices, you can help keep Maryland waterways healthy. The University of Maryland Extension (UME) Bay-Wise Program provides environmentally sound landscaping resources and Bay-Wise landscape certification opportunities to Maryland residents.

bay-wise logo

Many UME Master Gardeners from across the state of Maryland have been trained to educate the public about garden, landscape, and Bay-Wise best practices. UME Master Gardeners concentrate on several key Bay-Wise focus areas such as how to plant wisely, fertilize wisely, water efficiently, mulch appropriately, control stormwater runoff, encourage wildlife, and much more.

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