LFWA celebrated earth day by adding more native plants to the Green Acres Habitat Restoration Project. Volunteers planted ostrich ferns, wood poppies, white turtleheads, columbines, spiderworts, foamflowers, and more to join an earlier planting of redbuds and pawpaws as part of the ongoing project to restore the paper road at the end of Little Falls Drive, Bethesda, MD.

Native Plants for Green Acres

The cut through, or “paper road”, between Yorktown Road and Wakefield Road along the Little Falls creek in this Bethesda neighborhood used to be just grass and non-native invasives - vines, bush honeysuckle, brambles, and lots more. Since 2016, local resident Jane Gomes has led an effort to remove the weeds from this area and replace them with trees and native grasses and flowers as well as shrubs. What was once a barren spot is now alive with flowers, grasses and over 25 species of native plants.

Why is this important? Because native insects need native plants. Just like the monarch butterfly needs milkweed, all native insects have a host plant. And they can’t eat non-natives. The host must be a native plant. And without insects, you don't have songbirds (they feed caterpillars to their young). Without insects, you can't grow vegetables, you need them to pollinate the flower to grow fruit. Insects are everything and they need native plants. With native plants in place, the area is alive with bees, butterflies and other pollinators.

Below are some of our favorite before and after pictures from various stages in the project. We invite you to take a walk through the area and see what can be done with a vision, not that much money and a whole lot of volunteers. And think about how these native plants could enhance your yard!

More information about the Green Acres Habitat Restoration project is HERE.