Members of the Berwyn District Civic Association (BDCA) and other volunteers planted 500 native pollinator plants on June 7 at the Trolley Trail Permaculture Garden between Greenbelt Road and Tecumseh Street.
A few weeks earlier, the group planted 100 native perennials in a new rain garden on 49th Avenue.
The plantings were the result of two environmental grants that the association won this spring.
“With both projects, we want to demonstrate to people what you can do with native plants and the different purposes that gardens can serve,” Alec Lynde, chair of the BDCA Parks and Open Spaces Committee, said.
The first award, $3,000 for the rain garden, came from Keep Maryland Beautiful. Because rain gardens are shallow, they help absorb runoff from impervious surfaces, reducing polluted stormwater from entering local streams, said Lynde, who also serves as a member of the board of directors of Streetcar Suburbs Publishing, the nonprofit that publishes College Park Here & Now.
“A rain garden would be a great way to capture some of that runoff and help filter it before it actually flows into the sewer system, and then into the tributaries of the Anacostia that ultimately end up in the Chesapeake,” Lynde said.
Lynde said the idea for a rain garden came from a neighbor who noticed rain runoff along a road by a neighborhood park.
“Our goal is to really represent the neighborhood and do things that neighbors either want to see or we think will benefit the neighborhood overall,” he said. “So this really was just a combo of a neighbor highlighting an issue and us thinking through a project [about] how we could address that issue.”
According to Dede Lawal, the award manager for the state’s Keep Maryland Beautiful grant program, reviewers valued BDCA’s idea for a community-led project that has promising potential for long-term impacts.
“The program’s goal is to engage diverse organizations in projects that both improve natural resources and benefit communities,” Lawal said. “BDCA’s rain garden aligns well with this objective by directly supporting local habitat improvement, stormwater management and community well-being.”
The second award BDCA won is in partnership with the Xerces Society for the 2026 Mid-Atlantic Monarch and Pollinator Habitat Kit program. The Xerces Society is a nonprofit organization that focuses on conservation.
The civic association received 500 native and pollinator-friendly plants, representing 12 to 15 different species, to help expand the neighborhood’s pollinator garden bed near the Trolley Trail Permaculture Garden.
BDCA members decided to “mix and match” the species to “create a beautiful space [while] still using native plants,” according to Lynde.
Lynde said each of the projects serves an equally meaningful purpose for the community.
“The rain garden has an ecological function there in the park, but it has an infrastructure function in capturing that stormwater runoff and trying to prevent pollutants from making their way into the Chesapeake Bay,” he said. “The pollinator garden is more of a demonstration site. It’s an example of a pollinator garden and how you can incorporate different species and design it in a way that’s so beautiful.”
The two projects are intended to enhance the park and trail area by improving local stormwater management and creating a high-quality habitat for butterflies, bees and other pollinators, according to BDCA’s weekly newsletter.
According to Lawal, much of the watershed is privately owned, so the best way to take initiative is to get residents to take action within their own communities.
“[This] is a critical pathway to meaningful progress,” he said.
Lynde said committee members engaged others from the neighborhood in the projects.
“We [wanted] people to get excited and want to help us put these plants in the ground and then … see the garden unfold over time,” Lynde said.
He added: “[We] encourage people to get involved, or, at a minimum, encourage them to do projects like this in their own yards. That’s the big thing we want folks to take away.”