Wishing you a Joyous Holiday Season and a Happy New Year! 

Remember
This December,
That love weighs more than gold!
~Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

This season’s newsletter and future newsletters will feature “RainScaping in Action”—a platform to highlight rainscaping successes and ideas.

RainScaping Education Station and Rain Garden Installation at Quiet Waters Park As part of the RainScaping Campaign, Quiet Waters Park (QWP), Chesapeake Ecology Center (CEC), and South River Federation pooled resources for the installation of a RainScaping Education Station and Rain Garden at the 340-acre Quiet Waters Park. View photos here. Full Article...

WSA Rain Garden Installed at USNA Nature Center The Watershed Stewards Academy partnered with the United States Naval Academy for a successful rain garden installation at the USNA Nature Center at Greenbury Point on October 15th.  The Severn River East group (John Jeka, Colleen Ruhter, Eloise Ullman, and Brian Wolfe), along with 25 other volunteers successfully planted an approximately 350 square feet rain garden with 16 varieties of native plants. View photos here. Full Article...

Academy helps communities 'take ownership of their stormwater'

Master watershed stewards serve as an example and offer guidance to local homeowners

 Read Lara Lutz’s Bay Journal article here.

EPA Releases New DVD with Several Videos on Reducing Runoff from Urban Areas

EPA recently released a new DVD called “Reduce Runoff: Slow it Down, Spread it Out, Soak it In!” that includes four educational videos that provide an introduction to controlling runoff in urban areas.  The videos on this DVD can help fulfill the outreach requirements for EPA’s Stormwater MS4 program as well as helping with outreach for other purposes. EPA is encouraging the airing of these programs. The DVD compilation includes:

Ilex verticillata - Winterberry

Winterberry is a deciduous holly that is slow growing, with an upright-rounded habit. In the wild, it often suckers to form large thickets or colonies but can be pruned to form a small tree. Inconspicuous greenish-white flowers appear in late spring and give way to a crop of bright red berries in late summer to fall. Berries are quite showy and persist through most of the winter, hence the common name.

The RainScaping Campaign—an Environmental Partnership for Stormwater Runoff Solutions for Anne Arundel County—has 53 RainScaping Partners, all working to improve the health of our streams, creeks, rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay.