To the Pheasant Run community in South Laurel, "going green" means revitalizing the neighborhood's outdoor areas into a safer and more beautiful environment.
According to Garry Cardinal, president of the Homeowners Association, when the current board took office in 2013, its members decided to overhaul their community's common space with the goal of boosting property values and creating a more inviting place to live.
"We started seeing more and more houses go empty," Cardinal said. "We needed to start doing things to make the community look better."
On Oct. 18, about a dozen volunteers planted more than 20 new trees and numerous daffodil bulbs in the playground area and wetlands behind Dove Circle, as part of the Green Up Clean Up program in Prince George's County.
The program is a one-day beautification effort run by the Department of Public Works and Transportation and the Neighborhood Design Center, a nonprofit organization the county contracts to provide landscape planning and design services.
Pheasant Run resident Lindsey Baker, who chairs the Homeowners Association's common area committee, applied to the Green Up Clean Up program and attended a mandatory tree planting workshop at Bladensburg Waterfront prior to the day of planting; landscape architect Kelly Oklesson from the Neighborhood Design Center worked pro bono on the design.
Prince George's County provided river birch, redbud, little gem magnolia, hollies and serviceberry trees as well as the mulch and daffodil bulbs.
ISA-certified arborist Patricia Valentine, program coordinator at the Neighborhood Design Center, said she attended a Pheasant Run Homeowners Association meeting in December to discuss its eligibility in Right Tree Right Place, another Prince George's County program.
Right Tree Right Place aims to replace high-risk Bradford pear and ash trees, increasing the urban tree canopy and improving air and water quality in public rights-of-way in Prince George's County. The program implements the goals outlined in a county resolution that addresses shade trees within county rights-of-way.
Valentine said the Pheasant Run homeowners voted to replace their dangerous and dying trees. County Councilwoman Mary Lehman and Darrell Mobley, director of the Department of Public Works and Transportation, approved moving forward.
At the end of March, subcontractors with the Right Tree Right Place program planted approximately 90 "street trees" in the Pheasant Run community, according to Valentine.
"We are in the process of removing 56 Bradford pear trees and 10 dying ash trees on Pheasant Run Drive and Mallard Drive," she said.
Cardinal said he expects the removal of the trees to be finished by winter. And he hopes the Christmas tree demolished in the 2010 snow storm — which stood on the corner of Pheasant Run and Mallard Drives until it was removed about two weeks ago — will be replaced in the future.
Laura Kendrick of the Neighborhood Design Center said the County Department of Public Works and Transportation started replacing Bradford pear trees with "species that make more sense for streetscapes" about six years ago. She said the work can get complicated; the trees have to deal with salt, air pollution from cars, soil compaction and power lines.
For its work in landscape beautification, the National Design Center was awarded the International Society of Arboriculture's Gold Leaf Award in 2012.
Stormwater Stewardship Grant
On Dec. 29, Prince George's County and the Chesapeake Bay Trust allocated more than a million dollars in grants to support storm water restoration efforts through a Stormwater Stewardship Grant program.
The program funds activities that will reduce nutrient and sediment pollution and restore and protect local rivers, streams, parks and other natural resources. The County Department of the Environment and Chesapeake Bay Trust awarded the Pheasant Run Homeowners Association a grant for $11,730.
Baker, who spearheaded the grant application for the Pheasant Run Homeowners Association, said Sadie Drescher from Chesapeake Bay Trust helped her through the grant writing process.
Working with Baker and the Pheasant Run Homeowners Association was a "small, exciting and very cool project," Drescher said. "We are very happy to support them."
The Chesapeake Bay Trust grant covers the installation of three dog walking stations and a new rain garden, the distribution of five rain barrels to community members (Cardinal said this would likely be done by lottery) and the creation of a signage project, similar to an arboretum, in one of the common spaces.
Each of the improvements will have signs explaining its impact on the environment, according to Baker.
"I really saw this grant, and the other projects, as opportunities for Pheasant Run to fulfill some of our goals to make our neighborhood a community, while also helping the environment," Baker said.
According to Cardinal, 90 percent of the Chesapeake Bay Trust grant money was paid to the Homeowners Association in January, and the last 10 percent will be paid once Pheasant Run completes its list of requirements and the work is inspected.
Cardinal said, in the future, he would like to see the asphalt walkways removed from the area fondly nicknamed Fort Washington, where neighborhood kids built forts and played until the structures were taken down due to code violations. And he hopes the association's past and present actions are helping to attract new homeowners to Pheasant Run.
"We're trying to do things to get more of the community involved," Cardinal said, "and now we're seeing people move back into the neighborhood as opposed to all the vacancies."
The Pheasant Run Homeowners Association has scheduled its next community cleanup day for May 1.
"Our hope is that by creating common spaces that people want to spent time in, our neighborhood will come together more often as a community than a set of houses," Baker said.