After many lively and well-attended meetings, open houses and information sessions, the Takoma Park City Council, at their July 27 meeting, voted to approve the Development Agreement with Neighborhood Development Company (NDC), for the City-owned lot at the Takoma Junction. The agreement provides a roadmap for the development of the parking lot at the intersection of Carroll and Ethan Allen Avenues. The City Council selected NDC in 2015 to redevelop the lot with a mixeduse building, public space, environmentally-sustainable features and green space. The Council has final approval of critical aspects of the project, including the project schedule and the site plan.

The agreement also includes accommodations for the TPSS Food Co-op, a business adjacent to the City property. NDC and the TPSS Co-op are working on a private agreement between the two parties regarding the development. The City has proposed mediation to assist in that process.

The Council also approved the establishment of the Community Consultation Process Advisory Committee and appointed seven members to facilitate community input at specific stages of the development project. The committee’s efforts will focus on creating, in conjunction with Council, City staff and NDC, the process needed to guide broad community participation on various aspects of the development project. The committee will not be responsible for making substantive decisions or providing specific recommendations to the Council about the design, layout or use of the planned development.

Next steps in the process will include further study and planning. The site, a former dump, will require environmental clean-up and attention to stability of the slope. Existing and predicted traffic patterns and parking needs must be analyzed and addressed, along with the market demand for the commercial space in the project. NDC will work with the community, the Council and Montgomery County as plans develop.

Check the City website for updates regarding the Junction redevelopment at takomaparkmd.gov/ junction.

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Diane Svenonius, Takoma Horticultural Club

Like homo sapiens, the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is a highly adaptable mammal equipped to learn from experience. Thus lists of “what deer won’t eat” must be regarded as provisional. A deer should eat seven pounds of forage a day, and lacking enough tulips and roses, it will eat the next best thing, down to the “rarely browsed” category. Also, tastes vary from herd to herd, place to place, and perhaps with what’s trending on the deer grapevine.

If deer are taking the joy out of gardening for you, there are two approaches you can take to remedy the situation: 1) modify the vegetation or 2) secure the space. (But first… was it deer? Lacking upper incisors, deer pinch and tear the leaves they eat. If there is a neat bite, it’s likely to be something with front teeth like a rabbit. But deer will take flowers off their stalks neatly. )

Plant things that you like which are not deer priorities. Deer are widely thought to avoid plants with these characteristics: fuzzy leaves, thorns/hairs/prickles, pungent odor (even if delightful to you), fibrous stems and leaves, and toxicity. Thus ferns, many ornamental grasses, euphorbias, Castor oil plant, aconitum, and strong-scented herbs like lavender, sage, rosemary and thyme are good choices. You can plant borders of them around beds of tastier plants to deceive deer.1 Meanwhile, fertilize and water ornamentals sparingly. Over-fertilized, overwatered plants have lush, tender, appealing foliage.

Many of us love our blooms and are loath to lose them. These flowering plants appear on published lists as those “rarely” or “seldom” damaged by deer: daffodil, bleeding heart, peony, lily-of-the-valley, moss phlox (phlox subulata), hardy orchid (Bletilla striata), garden pinks (dianthus), Siberian iris, red hot poker, lavender, salvia, beardtongue (penstemon), rose campion, daisy; alliums, butterfly weed, blazing star, threadleaf coreopsis, blanket flower, lamb’s ear, yarrow, Russian sage, goldenrod, spotted mint (monarda punctata), sweet Autumn clematis, Stella d’Oro daylily. Shrubs and trees include lilac, butterfly bush, juniper, spruce, boxwood and heather.

Secure the space with hardware, potions, lights and pets. If we can’t live without roses, tomatoes, and so on, fencing is the most reliable barrier. Use wire mesh on metal poles, or poly deer netting, which can be mounted on an existing shorter fence or on supports. It should be fastened down at the bottom. Cover fruit bushes and vegetable crops with netting (holes must be large enough not to trap birds). Monofilament fishing line can be strung at various heights; deer feel it’s there but can’t see it, so they don’t jump.

Repellents rely on ingredients that taste terrible or smell like a predator. They’re most effective if started at the first sign of a problem. Follow package directions, replenish after rain, and change brands to keep the element of surprise. Home remedies include human hair hung in net bags, Irish Spring soap on a string, and others. You can also get creative with mechanical “frighteners,” shiny noisy things, sound and light effects to frighten or discourage deer, but these become routine and are ignored unless changed. A barking dog can also be a deterrent. Finally, male deer rub their antlers on the bark of small trees and shrubs in late summer into fall to remove velvet from their antlers. Prevent this, which can kill your tree, by placing wire mesh around the trunk, up to five feet, supported with wood stakes.

Notes 1

To make attractive landscape combinations with deer resistant plants and for advice on cultivation, see 50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants, by Ruth Rogers Clausen, Timber Press, 2013. 2 For other mammals in the garden and up to no good, see “Oh, Deer” by Kathy Jentz, Takoma Voice newspaper/Washington Gardener Magazine

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Morgan Fecto

Any voter can bubble-in choices on Election Day without knowing much about policy or platform. Joanne Ha and Sarina Matson, however, are two voting-aged teenagers (at least, in Takoma Park) who do their research on political issues.

“We found that if people start voting at a younger age, then they’ll continue voting overall,” Matson said.

Ha added: “We also found that the effect of setting the national voting age at 18 is that a lot of kids go to college, and it’s really difficult to vote outside of your home state. Then later you move to a big city and start working, and you’re not invested.”

For C-SPAN’s annual “Student Cam” documentary contest for middle and high school students, these 16-year-olds from Montgomery Blair High School won second prize for their film “Lower the Vote, Raise America,” along with three others in their division.

For 2016 Student Cam entrants made short documentaries about issues they think the presidential candidates should discuss. While the other winners in their division addressed juvenile justice reform, congressional term limits and campaign finance laws, Ha and Matson sought a topic with a local angle.

“Takoma Park is the first city to lower it’s municipal voting age to 16, and the only one in Maryland other than Hyattsville. We thought that was really unique,” Ha said.

Ha and Matson’s film uses statistics, footage they found online, original interviews with activists and locals, including Councilmember Tim Male and Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, as well as broll of the city.

“We include a lot of background footage of downtown to highlight the closeness of the community and what kind of town Takoma Park is,” Ha said. “But we chose this topic to make people aware nationally, not just locally, since it was going to air on cable television.”

Along with 14 other films made by Blair students, Ha and Matson’s film helped earn $1,250 for Blair’s Communication Arts Program, according to a press release from CAP. Making a film for Student Cam is a requirement for tenth graders in the program, which teaches its students about the humanities, digital media and community engagement.

For Ha and Matson, lowering the voting age hits close to home in more ways than one. “There are a lot of adults, as young as 18 to as old as people get, who could also be considered not educated enough or not mature enough to vote, and yet they automatically have that privilege,” Ha said. “At 16 we’re at the age when some people already have jobs and pay taxes and are involved in politics, and these decisions that adults vote on also directly affect them.”

Matson added: “16-year-olds have also just taken AP Government, usually, and so we’re freshly alert about the political process.”

Making choices for themselves is important to Ha and Matson. When they looked for interview subjects, they found more choices than they expected.

“Usually the most difficult part about interviews, which is the most important part about documentaries, is [finding] people who are available,” Ha said. “But Tim Male and Kate Stewart put us in touch with all these people who were passionate about the topic. We had 20 to 30 minutes of interviews to go into a four to seven-minute documentary,” Ha said.

Although Ha and Matson didn’t hurt from a lack of interview subjects, they had to look harder than they expected for the right footage. “I learned the importance of b-roll,” Matson said, “which is the background footage. We had missed election season to start filming things, so we poked around online and found some footage there.”

In the next local election, Ha and Matson said they’ll step out from behind the camera and into the lines at the polls. To watch “Lower the Vote, Raise America,” and the other winning Student Cam films, go to www.studentcam.org.

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Karen MacPherson

Diversity is much more than a hashtag in the world of children’s and teen literature these days. There is a growing effort by publishers, librarians and others to ensure that all kids have access to books that offer them windows to different worlds outside their own, while also providing mirrors that reflect their own experience.

Galvanized by the recent “We Need Diverse Books” movement, the children’s and teen literature world also has been inspired by essays written by the late Walter Dean Myers, the third National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and his son Christopher Myers. Published in The New York Times Book Review in March 2014, these essays pointedly noted that the lack of diversity in books for kids had first been highlighted decades ago, and decried the fact that so little had changed since then.

Statistics kept by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin underline that fact. The latest statistics show that of the more than 3,400 books the CCBC received from publishers, only a sliver were by African-American, Latino, Asian or American Indian authors or illustrators, or featured characters of those races or ethnicities.

As Walter Dean Myers wrote in his 2014 essay, “books transmit values. They explore our common humanity. What is the message when some children are not represented in those books? Where are the future white personnel managers going to get their ideas of people of color? Where are the future white loan officers and future white politicians going to get their knowledge of people of color? Where are black children going to get a sense of who they are and what they can be?”

While children’s literature experts agree there still is a very long way to go, there has been some progress towards diversifying the kinds of books written and published for kids and teens. For example, “We Need Diverse Books” isn’t just a slogan, but has been transformed into an organization that publishes lists of recommended books and also has created a new award, The Walter – named for Walter Dean Myers – to recognize and celebrate the best books by diverse authors. The first award was given earlier this year to Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely for their teen book, All American Boys.

While the major publishers of children’s and teen books remain a largely white workforce, a number of them are actively attempting to diversify their offerings for kids and teens. Professional review journals like School Library Journal are actively recruiting more reviewers of color and diverse backgrounds in an effort to offer a fresh take on children’s literature. Meanwhile, Kirkus Reviews now is noting in each kids’ or teen book review the race of the characters, in part to underline the fact white characters remain the majority in children’s books, even as the United States is fast becoming “majority-minority.”

Other hopeful signs include the recent winners of some of the most prestigious children’s literature awards. In 2015 Dan Santat, who is of Thai descent, won the Caldecott Medal for his book The Adventures of Beekle, while Kwame Alexander, an African-American, won the Newbery Medal for The Crossover. This year Matt de la Pena became the first Latino male to win the Newbery Medal for his picture book Last Stop on Market Street, while the Caldecott Medal went to Sophie Blackall for Finding Winnie. While Blackall is white, the number of women who have won the Caldecott Medal remains much smaller than men; the last woman to win the Caldecott Medal was Erin Stead in 2011.

In addition the American Library Association sponsors an array of awards designed to promote diversity in children’s and teen books. There’s the Coretta Scott King Award for books by African-American authors and illustrators, the Pura Belpre Award for books by Latino authors and illustrators, the Schneider Family Book Award for books about “the disability experience” for kids and teens and the Stonewall Book Awards for books featuring LGBTQ characters. Other ALA-associated awards focus on books created by American Indians as well as Asian-Pacific Islanders.

At our Library we purchase all of the ALA award-winning books and spotlight those and other books by diverse authors and illustrators (including books on the We Need Diverse Books lists) in our displays. We also try to promote these books to kids and their parents, following the idea that young readers benefit from both windows into other people’s experiences and mirrors that reflect their own lives.

In fact libraries have a key role to play in the effort to ensure diversity in books for kids and teens. As Matt de la Pena said in his Newbery Medal acceptance speech in June, “librarians: In a time when some people build walls, you give young people the tools they need to tear them down.”

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Ellen Robbins

At the City Council’s request, The Lukmire Partnership recently submitted two new concept designs for Library renovation and expansion. The new floor plans and exterior and interior drawings may be seen on a slide show in the project directory of the City web site, along with an animation of an earlier version. They are also displayed in the Library.

The new concepts include additional expansion toward Philadelphia and Maple Avenues, enclosure of part of the area above the police parking lot for a public lounge, more space for young adult books, and more attractive exterior designs.

At their July 27 Meeting, Council Members voted unanimously to direct the City Manager to contract with The Lukmire Partnership to proceed with detailed design development on the new concepts in the current fiscal year. A decision on holding a referendum as part of the FY17 election before going forward with actual renovation was deferred, pending further review.

You are encouraged to view the new designs. There is also a survey for general comments regarding about this on the City web site in the project directory. Questions may be directed to Library Director Ellen Robbins at ellenr@takomaparkmd.gov.

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

The Arts and Humanities Commission is excited about the fall 2016 We Are Takoma arts and humanities line-up. Here’s a quick preview of some of the upcoming events.

On Thursday, Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m., venture into the contemporary jazz scene in Tokyo, Japan, with PhD ethnomusicology student William Scally in his presentation Tokyo Jazz: Decentering “America’s Classical Music.”

The exhibition Traditions, featuring work by Susana Garten, Lauren Kingsland, and Marsha Stein, opens with a reception on Thursday, Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m

Also on Thursday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m. Docs In Progress presents the film Moosehead’s Wicked Good Plan followed by a discussion with filmmaker Sarah Katz.

The ever-popular Third Thursday Poetry series launches its 12th year on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. with readings by Grace Cavalieri, Megan Kuyatt, Charles Wright, and David Salner with host Merrill Leffler.

On Thursday, Oct. 6 at 7:30 pm, George Washington University’s Dr. Jennifer Tobkin discusses Muhammad ibn Dawud alIsfahani, A Poet of Male Friendship and Love in 9th Century Baghdad.

Thursday, Oct. 13 at 7:30 pm, you are invited to Street Sense Film Night for the screenings of Fairness Rising, Late Show, and Raise to Rise, three short films about homelessness in the nation’s capital made by people experiencing homelessness but for everyone to see.

Kate Bole and the Culkin School of Irish Dance show off their fancy footwork in Lilt ‘N Dance on Saturday, Oct. 15 at 7:30 pm.

Third Thursday Poetry is back Oct. 20 at 7:30 pm with featured poets Jean Nordhaus, Martin Fitzpatrick, and Renee Gherity.

On Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7:30 pm, take a virtual tour with Lara Langer, recent PhD in Art History from University of Maryland, to see Highlights from the Collection of Renaissance Sculpture at the National Gallery of Art.

Man/Made opens Thursday, Nov. 10, with a reception at 6:30 pm showcasing works by Jessica Beels, Alexis Cohen, Allan Leventhal, and Dilip Sheth.

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Helen Lyons

A brand new community kitchen at the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church will give micro entrepreneurs a leg up as they build their businesses, thanks to a partnership with Crossroads Community Food Network and grants from the city, county, and state.

“There’s lots of people who have incredible skills and talent and want to start food businesses,” said Lorig Charkoudian, the executive director of Community Mediation Maryland, who spearheaded the initiative, “and to have food businesses, you have to have a licensed commercial kitchen.”

Charkoudian said that many of those ambitious entrepreneurs lack the capital required to obtain access to a licensed kitchen, and entrepreneurs said that the kitchens in their homes aren’t suitable for building strong businesses.

“The difference between having it in your house and having your own [commercial] kitchen is huge,” said Maria Pia Chirinos, who hopes that the Community Kitchen will allow her to grow her mother-daughter catering business specializing in Peruvian cuisine.

“We are fifteen minutes away from here,” Pia Chrinios said, “so it would be awesome to have the kitchen right here. We can come, cook here and sell our food. The kitchen here is going to be amazing.”

Beverly Coleman, the owner of Bev’s Gourmet Salad Creations, called the convenience “an awesome thing.”

“You don’t have to go hunting and pecking and trying to find somewhere,” she said. “We have our own kitchen in the community. It’s home based. It’s a great thing, and it’s definitely going to help me.”

Prospective business owners aren’t the only ones who have taken an interest in the Community Kitchen. Danny Wells, chef and part-owner of Takoma Park’s Republic restaurant, said that he’s drawn by both the uniqueness and the quality of the food that business owners plan to prepare in the kitchen.

“There’s a lot of Latin American producers that produce ingredients that are really hard to find around here,” Wells said, “and in this super diverse community in which we live and work, it’s cool to find channels for harder-to-find products. The general purveyor that I work with can’t find a lot of the products that these guys are going to produce.”

With its focus on “really beginning, low access to capital, new entrepreneurs” rather than more established enterprisers, Lorig Charkoudian said that the Community Kitchen is the only one of its kind in the greater Washington area.

“What this kitchen is going to do is create access for people with limited economic means to really get their businesses and their dreams off the ground,” Charkoudian said.

Xavier Carrillo is among them. He lives just around the corner from the church and sells tropical flavored frozen treats influenced by a nostalgia for his childhood in El Salvador. “It’s going to be so perfect for me,” said Carillo, who hopes the kitchen will help him both grow his business and share his culture.

The kitchen’s renovations have already begun, and Mayor Kate Stewart said that the neglected space in the church is expected to finish its transformation “later this year.”

“The Community Kitchen will host microenterprise development, cooking and nutrition classes,” Mayor Stewart said, “and facilitate the preparation of food for distribution to low-income individuals and families. In its own way, the Community Kitchen will help alleviate hunger and economic inequality by providing for local food production. If those aren’t Takoma Park values, I don’t know what are.”

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Kevin Adler, former chair of the Takoma Park Folk Festival

The 39th annual Takoma Park Folk Festival was scheduled to be held on Sept. 11, but in July, the Festival’s leaders canceled the event for the first time since its founding in 1978.

The most recent chair, Colleen Clay, whose leadership has brought new energy to the Festival, is leaving the area. The Festival is struggling with a general lack of enough people in the spring and summer to coordinate tasks, such as publicity, volunteer recruitment and food vendors as well as someone to replace Clay.

All the Festival’s leaders have made it clear they hope this will be only a one-year hiatus. However, they warn that the break will be permanent if the community does not produce a sufficient number of organizers in the next few months.

“The message we want to get across is urgency,” said Scott Gilkeson, who has been a Festival committee member for more than a decade. “The Festival has a lot of strengths, but we need more support if we are going to survive.”

To kick off a volunteer recruitment effort, the Festival will be holding an open house at the end of September in the Takoma Park Community Center. Festival leaders are looking for 10 people who will join the existing team to revive the Festival for September 2017. “The volunteer commitment is serious, but it’s less time than you might think,” Gilkeson said.

As part of the outreach for new volunteers, the Festival’s current board encourages newcomers to bring their ideas about what the Festival can be. “This is a chance for people to shape the ‘new’ Takoma Park Folk Festival. Come with your ideas and work with us,” said Walter Mulbry, a veteran of more than 20 Festivals.

New ideas have always been a part of the Festival, said Gina Gaspin, chair of the crafts committee. She brought in food artisans to the crafts show last year for the first time.

The program is always evolving, too, said Judy Oliver, chair of the program committee that selects performers each year. She cited the Grassy Nook Stage as an example. “The Grassy Nook now features teenage performers instead of adults playing kids’ songs. That was an idea brought by a committee member, Marika Partridge, and she’s made it into one of the most popular stages at the Festival,” Oliver said.

“We have a very special event, and it’s unusual with the combination of music, dance, crafts and community tables. The foundation is here for keeping the Festival going. Those of us on the board are ready to work on the Festival for 2017 and also eager to pass what we know on to the next generation of organizers,” Oliver said. For information, visit the Festival’s website at www.tpff.org.

This article appeared in the August 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Rick Henry

When one characterizes the typical Takoma Park resident, two of the key attributes that come to mind are loyalty to the city and a commitment to the earth.

So it should be no surprise that a group of city residents wants to take those characteristics to the ultimate degree by creating a memorial scatter garden in a city-owned park where the cremains of Takoma Park residents can rest for eternity.

A scatter garden is a place where people scatter the ashes of their loved ones and where small plaques marking the names of those whose ashes are scattered are displayed.

“Takoma Park people are very attached to the city. We don’t want to live anywhere else or be dead anywhere else,” said Jennifer Beman White, the person who initiated the project and enlisted many of her Sherman Avenue neighbors in the effort, including Beth Baker.

“I loved the idea as soon as I heard about it from Jennifer,” Baker said. “I envision a scatter garden as a simple, lovely way for people to remember their family and friends.”

Scatter gardens are common, but are found exclusively within existing cemeteries or churches. What makes the proposed Takoma Park scatter garden unique is that it would be free-standing and located on city-owned land.

“We have done a lot of research and talked with someone from the Cremation Association of America, and we have not found an example of one being started by a municipality for its residents,” Beman White said. “In fact the association was very excited about the proposition and wants us to keep them informed on how it works out.” Baker believes the proposed scatter garden is “in keeping with the city’s tradition of being nontraditional.”

Both Baker and Beman White said they have received nothing but positive feedback from the people they have spoken with about the project, but both also realize that there will have to be a lot of outreach to the community as a whole. “It is a commitment to perpetuity after all,” Beman White said.

To educate the public about scatter gardens and the process of establishing one in the city, the Committee for a Takoma Park Memorial Scatter Garden has created a website (tpmsg.org), which includes an FAQ of common questions and concerns that some people may have about the project, such as: “Are their health concerns?” (The quick answer is no); “Are the remains actually scattered?” (Not necessarily); and “How much will it cost?” (That depends on which design elements, such as walls, benches and landscaping, are incorporated).

As to the actual process of establishing a scatter garden in the city, the group presented its concept to the city’s Commemoration Commission, which “documents, maintains and preserves past, present and future memorials, commemorations and recognitions” and makes recommendations to the City Council.

Commission member Howard Kohn said that while a scatter garden is “not the most obvious part of our purview,” and is different than the traditional ways of honoring people such as monuments, signs, benches and trees, “it does fall within what we are designated to do.”

He also added that while the commission is supportive of the scatter garden; the biggest challenge is finding a location that is suitable.

“There are very few places that are green and open and where no active recreation takes place,” he said.

Beman White and other members of the group involved with the project did a walk around the city with commission chair Richard O’Connor, and they identified some potential spots, which they plan to share with the City Council as soon as they can get on the agenda. Ultimately, the Council would have to approve the scatter garden.

This article appeared in the July 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.

By Colleen Cordes and Gresham Lowe

Takoma Park should have a front row seat to fireflies’ annual summer light show, thanks to the City’s Safe Grow Act of 2013 and to Takoma Park’s many residents who are practicing ever more organic approaches to gardening and lawn care.

The recent law restricts the use of certain pesticides for cosmetic lawn care that the U.S. and other governments have classified as posing particular health risks or that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has designated for restricted use. Takoma Park was the first community in the nation of our size to enact such broad restrictions for private property. Following our lead, Montgomery County recently passed similar restrictions, and Maryland lawmakers just passed legislation restricting the sale and use of neonicotinoid pesticides to protect pollinators.

This is all welcome news for local fireflies – also known as lightning bugs. Because they spend so much time in their larval phase under or on the ground and their diet is mainly other small grounddwelling insects, fireflies are considered especially susceptible to pesticides and other lawn chemicals. Exploring more organic ways to take care of lawns and gardens is also worth considering to protect a wide range of other species as well, including butterflies, other pollinators and bats and birds that eat the insects. On up the food chain, organic lawn and garden care helps protect pets and our own families, especially children, who often play on lawns and are developmentally more vulnerable to toxins.

Here are three introductory tips to begin exploring more organic approaches to lawn care and gardening:

Start from the ground up by evaluating and enriching your soil. Healthy soil contributes to plant health, including a deep, rich network of roots. Healthy roots make grass and garden plants more resilient from drought, disease and insect infestations. So begin by evaluating your soil quality. You can have it analyzed by an expert, or if that seems too complicated, examine it closely yourself. For advice on whether you should have your soil chemically analyzed to test for specific nutrient deficiencies, take a sample to a free Master Gardener Plant Clinic in the county. (See extension. umd.edu/mg/locations/plant-clinics for more information.)

For a do-it-yourself evaluation, observe a handful up close. Good soil will smell slightly sweet, be a rich dark brown or almost black and have a crumbly texture when dry but hold together well when moistened and formed in a ball. If the color is red and can only be dug up in thick, sticky clumps, as is the case in much of Takoma Park, your soil is heavy in clay and would especially benefit from applications of mature compost. The City’s leaf mulch, which you can pick up for free at the Public Works Department on Oswego Avenue or order and schedule a delivery, is an affordable option. For more information, call 301-891-7633.

Let nature be your guide. Healthy ecosystems thrive in diversity. Native plants have evolved to thrive in each other’s company, and each plant has its own preference for hours of sun exposure. Working within these natural limits makes for less frustrating landscaping. A monoculture, like grass, will be more susceptible to serious invasions of insects or weeds than a yard planted with a variety of species that are both native to our area and wellsuited to the micro-environment of your own yard.

The shade from Takoma Park’s lush forest canopy, for example, makes growing grass a particular challenge in many yards. Our white oaks and other native trees are much more compatible with shade-tolerant shrubs and plants. Lovely native ferns often do well on our many shady hills. (Before digging under trees, check the Tree Ordinance.) Consider reducing the area of yard planted in grass. In fact, establishing a large area of mulch around big trees – the most valuable part of the home landscape – is an excellent way to help them resist the stresses of urban life, such as pollution, soil compaction, and root disturbance. No mulch volcanoes, please! You need just two to three inches of mulch coverage, starting no closer than half a foot from the trunk but extending as far out as you like. The further you go, the greater the boon to trees. Refresh the mulch when it gets thin, incorporating the tree’s own fallen leaves if you can, which will continue to improve the fertility and structure of your soil.

Start with safest, least toxic solutions first. Weed your garden by hand before weeds get out of hand. As for lawns, if dandelions or other uninvited wildflowers become too invasive, hand weeding a fair percentage of them will help bring their numbers back under control. For gardens, include plants like marigolds and certain onions that naturally repel pests. A little nibbling of garden plants by insects is natural. If you’re losing more than, say, 30 per cent of your planting to an infestation, you can try a fairly high pressure blast of hose water to wash bugs away. Non-toxic, plant-based horticultural oils can be used to suffocate pests, and horticultural soaps – or even soapy dishwater – can also be sprayed. For help identifying a serious insect infestation and advice about other non-toxic steps, such as purchasing beneficial insects like hungry ladybugs to help bring a bad infestation under control, visit the Master Gardener clinics mentioned above.

Participating in such interspecies sharing is the real spirit behind organic lawn and garden care, much like grateful fireflies contributing their fair share by lighting up the night in Takoma Park!

Colleen Cordes and Gresham Lowe are members of the Takoma Park Tree Commission. They thank Kathy Jentz, editor of Washington Gardener Magazine and past president of the Takoma Horticultural Club, and local resident Nichelle Harriott, science and regulatory director of Beyond Pesticides, for the tips they shared for this article. For more information, visit Beyond Pesticides’ website, www.beyondpesticides.org.

This article appeared in the July 2016 edition of the Takoma Park Newsletter. The Takoma Park Newsletter is available for download here.