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TextWatershed Friendly Garden Tour
Sunday, June 10, 2012, 1 - 5 p.m.
Get inspired to create an environmentally-friendly landscape at your home, school, or business! Visit gardens throughout Fairfax County featuring vegetated roofs, rain barrels, backyard wildlife habitat, composting, native plant species and more. Local residents open their gardens and share their experiences landscaping with our water resources in mind.
Please enjoy each garden at your own pace. Visit as many or as few as you like. Gardens are grouped for ease of viewing. No RSVP is required. For questions prior to the 10th, please email us or call 703-324-1423, TTY 711.
This event is co-sponsored by the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District and the Fairfax Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists.
Each of the site hosts will be distributing copies of Resources for Watershed Friendly Gardeners.
View 2012 Watershed Friendly Garden Tour in a larger map.
A note about this year's site selections: The 2012 Watershed Friendly Garden Tour features fewer sites closer together than in previous years. This is so that visitors can get to and spend time at all the sites and to minimize driving time from one site to the next, based on feedback from hosts and visitors. The downside is that, in our large county, many residents do not have sites near them to visit. In future tours, we will focus on other sections of the county. If you own or know of a watershed-friendly garden you would like to nominate for our next tour, please let us know.
Watershed Friendly Garden Tour Site Descriptions
Gesher Jewish Day School: 4800 Mattie Moore Ct, Fairfax. This tour stop is truly a model school for anyone looking to incorporate outdoor space into the curriculum. This 'living classroom' includes a vernal pool, butterfly meadow, woodland trail, bluebird boxes (with nesting bluebirds and chickadees) and raised bed gardens that all are a source of discovery for the students. Well-marked trails and seating areas near each of these features allow teachers across disciplines to use the outdoor setting. A wonderful example of how a school teaches watershed conservation education by utilizing their school grounds.
Oakton Trolley Stop: 2923 Gray St, Oakton. Not only is this tour stop a historic one but the homeowner, Adrienne Stefan, has taken great care to get her place certified as backyard wildlife habitat. You can see the original trolley station, a 1905 Victorian with a wrap-around porch, the rail bed, and a few rails still in view. In addition the site offers native plants, limited mowing and a jewelweed-filled bog garden which soaks up water.
Unity of Fairfax: 2854 Hunter Mill Road, Oakton. There are many conservation activities to see at this demonstration site! Watershed friendly techniques include a vegetative green roof planted with sedums, micro-pools and a riparian buffer strip that lead to a sponge garden/detention pond, a woodland wildlife sanctuary and a retaining rock wall. All of these reduce pollution and increase habitat for wildlife. There is excellent signage identifying and explaining main features, native plants and important educational messages about Rocky Branch (a tributary of Difficult Run). Every community and church member has the opportunity to help with the conservation activities offered at this site. Photo credit: Unity of Fairfax.
Christmus Residence: 1303 Cottage Street, SW, Vienna. Several watershed-friendly features such as removing the non-native turf lawn, replacing impervious concrete with permeable pavers, using rain barrels to collect rainwater, using indigenous plants, a wildlife-friendly water feature and gardening without using pesticides demonstrate that homeowners can achieve harmony between their built environment and natural environment and provide people and wildlife benefits at the same time. This garden is a certified Audubon at Home Wildlife Sanctuary, Monarch Waystation Habitat, certified Virginia Habitat at Home, and certified National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Backyard Wildlife Habitat.
Stark Residence: 825 Ridge Drive, McLean. This residence is an example of a successful homeowner rain garden project. It also shows how native plants and rain gardens can be beautifully incorporated into a traditional landscaped look. The homeowner, Gretchen Stark, designed and had the rain garden built with the help of a small team armed with wheelbarrows, picks and shovels. A rain garden blends into the surroundings and helped solve an ongoing drainage issue, profiled in a Conservation Currents article. The garden is also an Audubon at Home certified wildlife sanctuary.
Garigan Residence: 7811 Sycamore Drive, Falls Church, VA 22042. Recently featured on the Annandale Blog, the home includes a permeable gravel driveway, 250 gallon cistern, soil amendments with leaf mulch, and over 100 species of native plants. The yard, which previously had drainage issues, is now able to retain and percolate water into the soil. Note: This home is currently on the market and participation on the tour may be contingent on its status.
Eagle Residence: 8008 Georgetown Pike, Great Falls. The Eagles are very passionate about conserving their land in the Potomac Gorge, with a conservation easement on their own property as well as on another recently acquired parcel below their own. The Potomac Gorge is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the country, home to over 1,400 plant species and contains over 30 natural vegetation communities, as well as supporting a vast array of animal life. They are involved in the American Chestnut restoration, and recently put bees on their property through SweetVirginia. The Eagles also have an active stream monitoring site on Bull Neck Run, which is parallel to the property. Photo Credit: Northern Virginia Conservation Trust.
Daniels Run Elementary School. Eleven conservation projects are demonstrated within this school's living classroom. Students and volunteers designed and created watershed friendly features. Included in their projects are a constructed wetland, pollinator garden, forest restoration, and a sponge garden. Other techniques that are on display include an edge garden, riparian buffer plantings, and a streambank stabilization. The rain garden captures rooftop runoff from a portion of the school building and filters it through the soil. Photo credit: Lands and Waters.
Bushaw-Newton Residence: 2651 West Street, Falls Church. This property's watershed-friendly centerpiece is a very attractive permeable driveway with a gravel base, strong structural pieces, and fine pebble surface layer, framed with brick along the borders and accented with a short stone wall. The homeowner had it installed with care not to damage mature trees. Previously, water would pool on the driveway and erode the adjacent landscaping. Now each time it rains, water soaks into the driveway and enters the soil below, solving this long-standing erosion and drainage problem and protecting local waterways. The garden also incorporates hedgerow vegetation and is maintained without the use of fertilizer or pesticides.
Other Watershed Friendly Sites
The following three watershed friendly sites can be visited at any time during daylight hours.
Hidden Oaks Nature Center: 7701 Royce Street, Annandale, VA 22003. Long offering exemplary programming on local wildlife and plants, Hidden Oaks also provides a place to view permeable paving, rain barrels, and a rain garden. A pond and NWF certified Wildlife Habitat garden complete this woodland retreat.
Fairfax County Providence District Supervisor's Office: 8739 Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA 22031. This site is a sustainable low impact development demonstration location fascinating for all visitors. The parking lot at this government building has been retrofitted with a rain garden and attractive pervious pavers. A green roof captures rainwater on an adjacent shed. A well-placed mirror allows visitors to see onto the green roof year-round.
Herrity Green Roof Demonstration Project: 12055 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax, VA 22030. Three different planting levels illustrate the three types of green roofs within the 5,000 sq ft. demonstration project which includes extensive, semi-intensive, and intensive vegetated roof systems. Green roofs provide energy savings benefits, mainly by reducing rooftop temperatures, while several deep planters filled with native shrubs and perennials also retain and filter rainwater that would otherwise runoff untreated into the storm drains. The project showcases the beauty and variety of green roofs.
2011 Site Descriptions
For last year's tour sites, please see 2011 Watershed Friendly Garden Tour.
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