Think Spring! Think nature!

Community Updates

March 15, 2021

Spring into action with our upcoming events and classes

Join us for our first

Nature Poetry Salon

Online via Zoom, March 28th

3:00 pm until 4:30 pm

As a way to celebrate Spring, do you have a favorite nature poem you'd like to share with others? Sign up to read it aloud on a Sunday afternoon. If you'd just like to listen to some poetry about nature, you can sign up as a listener. We have a limit of 10 participants for poems to read aloud and no limit on the number of poetry appreciators who would like to relax and listen. Vice-Chair Ginny Barnes will lead the salon session. When we get through all 10 poems, there may be time for open discussion. We envision this as a possible start to a series of poetry salons. We anticipate holding sessions outdoors in the future, in a park or other natural setting. So, join us to enjoy sharing the poetry that our natural world inspires.

Please RSVP here.

Coming in April

Spring Big Tree Tour with Joe Howard

April 17th, 10 am - 12 pm

At McCrillis Gardens

6910 Greentree Rd

Bethesda, Md. 20817

Limit: 15 participants. Masks and distance are required.

Donated to Montgomery County Parks in 1978 by owners, William and Virginia McCrillis, this five-acre naturalistic garden is tucked into a quiet residential neighborhood. With shady, winding paths and a collection of ornamental shrubs, it is also home to a number of champion trees including the State Champion Paw Paw and Western Red Cedar. Join CM and the indomitable Joe Howard (pictured), founder of the Register of Champion Trees for Montgomery County, and take a morning walk through this delightful secret garden.

There is no onsite parking but parking is available just across the street at Woods Academy. You must register in advance to join the tour. The link is below.

RSVP

Home Tree Care 101

Do you ever wonder how to keep your mature trees on your home lot healthy so they will live a long life? Then this is a great time to sign up for one of our Home Tree Care 101 sessions. We welcome two new arborists this year, Jack Pond and Andres Ovalle.

The first step to set up this outdoor class is to contact your neighbors and gauge interest. Then you make a reservation for one of our classes. We send a certified arborist to your community for a "walk-about" with you and your neighbors. We walk from home to home and look at your favorite tree(s). Our arborist will provide demonstrations of proper pruning and other techniques to help your trees thrive. There is a small cost of $20 per person for the service. The per-class price is reduced this year to help in case Covid-19 has put a strain on your personal budget. We are also assisted by a grant from the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection to manage this program. The grant has allowed us to expand this program to includes classes in Spanish this year.

HTC 101 is an outdoor class; we require masks and appropriate physical distancing.

To express interest in a Spring class, go to this link.

A volunteer from Conservation Montgomery will contact you.

Our Spring dates that are available are:

April 10 (Class can be held in English or Spanish.)

April 24 (Class can be held in English or Spanish.)

May 1

May 8 (Class can be held in English or Spanish.)

May 15

May 22 (Class can be held in English or Spanish.)

June 5

More good news on Home Tree Care 101

Conservation Montgomery is in the process of converting our four-part video series on Home Tree Care 101 to both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

We are very excited about this new project, which is made possible by our grant from the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). To learn more about DEP programs, such as Tree Montgomery , follow this link.

Hola Spanish greeting handwritten with white calligraphic cursive font inside blue speech bubble or balloon. Creative hand lettering. Modern illustration for t-shirt_ tee or sweatshirt print

Welcome to our newest Conservation Montgomery Board Member

Congratulations to Helen Burns

Our board recently elected Helen Burns as a new CM board member. She has been a member of the Communications Committee for the past two years. Helen is a graduate of Oberlin College (‘11) and Georgetown University (‘15) and now works as a cyber security analyst for a private consulting firm. She spent three years living in Eastern Europe teaching English while independently researching environmentally sustainable economic development. As a resident of Takoma Park, she enjoys long distance running and biking on the Sligo Creek trail. Helen is particularly interested in improving water quality locally as well as mitigating the water crises in other parts of the United States that result from climate change. Currently, she is working as a volunteer with youth advocacy groups to assist the County Executive in developing affordable housing strategies that minimize environmental impact and maintain green space. Helen is fluent in Spanish and Russian.

Volunteer Needed

Conservation Montgomery is looking for a volunteer to help us better organize our database. If you are handy with Excel and organizing information, please consider working with us to update our donor database.

Contact us at ConservationMontgomery@live.com to express interest.

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