There must have been two dozen butterflies floating and darting through the air when we first laid eyes on Adam Laye’s front yard. It’s the sunniest spot in the whole yard, and Adam planted it with native plants when he realized he could have amazing results if he took out most of the lawn and gave the area to sun-loving plants. This bed is thickly planted with native plants, including Joe Pye weed, coreopsis, showy goldenrod, native hibiscus, and dozens of coneflowers.

When he first built his home ten years ago in Hyde, north of Towson, Adam planted a pollinator garden in his back yard. His interest in attracting pollinators like butterflies, moths, native bees, wasps, and other pollinating insects blossomed as the garden grew. When he began reading books by Doug Tallamy (“Nature’s Best Hope”, “Bringing Nature Home”, “The Nature of Oaks”, and more) which document the connection between butterflies and their host plants, he decided to seek out and grow native plants because of their huge impact in supporting our ecosystem.

The day we were visiting, we were continually astonished by the number of butterflies, including Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Black Swallowtails, Spicebush Swallowtails, as well as Monarch butterflies and many Skippers feeding off the coneflowers and other flowering native plants in the meadow Adam has planted in his front yard. He grew almost all of them from seed, using winter-sowing; he now has four species of Joe Pye weed, including the hollow-stem variety and Sweet Joe- Pye ; native hibiscus plants, Agastache, and Rattlesnake Master. He has several winterberries and hollies, and he trains native coral honeysuckle up a trellis along his kitchen window, so his kids can watch the hummingbirds feeding from the flowers in the spring. His neighbors are noticing how beautiful his front yard has become: a neighbor recently stopped by to ask him to create a meadow for him in his yard.

Emily Green has been a pioneer in the native plant movement in this country. She started gardening with native plants about 25 years ago in California. Emily was a journalist and when she became the LA Times’ garden writer she started writing about gardening with native plants and became part of the movement to change the way people in California thought about gardens and gardening. She moved to Baltimore a little less than five years ago and immediately began creating a native garden in both the front and back yard of her Lake Walker home. In less than five years she eliminated nearly all the grass on her property!

Emily started by breaking up her concrete driveway with the help of a mason and turning it into a rain garden that receives the run-off from her roof. She re-used the concrete to build a retaining wall along the edge of her rain garden. She also dug up her sidewalk and used stumps from neighbors’ trees that had been cut down as stepping stones in her front garden which is now filled with moss phlox, juniper, native lupine, butterfly weed, black-eyed Susans and echinacea. On one side of her house she planted a river birch to help break up the wind coming from that direction.

In the back yard her former driveway became a berry and nut garden with winterberries, a sweet bay magnolia tree, red cedar and a bush honeysuckle. She also has red cardinal flowers, large clumps of Joe-Pye, monarda and echinacea. She uses stumps and old branches to edge her beds and uses fallen leaves to help with drainage issues caused by her sloping yard. There are woodchip paths throughout and attractive shallow bowls filled with water that are perched on stumps for the birds. There is a huge silver maple that dominates the back yard and provides natural A/C for her house. She shared that she has spent thousands of dollars to keep that tree alive and its branches supported.

Through-out her property, Emily has given much attention to the design of her gardens, creating a “sense of flow,” as she describes it, with the selection and placement of her plants. She is also creating a sense of enclosure of her back yard by planting a number of trees at the rear of her property.

Emily says she is a self-taught horticulturist. Emily is truly passionate about her love of gardening with native plants and she opens her gardens to anyone who wants to see them. Her gardens were part of the Lake Walker garden tour this year.

When they first moved into their home in Lutherville, Allen Hicks and his wife, Jenny Earhart, were delighted by a neighbor’s yard, which was planted with flowering plants and shrubs all the way to the sidewalk. They loved it so much, they decided to fill their front yard with native plants and grasses, as well as artwork that Allen has created. A colorful bottle tree delights the neighborhood children.

The front yard is a riot of color from native plants, including St. John’s wort, several species of monarda, coreopsis, meadowsweet, baptisia, evening primrose, fireworks goldenrod and lots of culver’s root. Native shrubs and trees in the front yard include elderberry, spicebush, and Redbud.

Jenny is an herbalist, and so the garden includes both native and non-native plants that are important ingredients for infusions and tinctures. These plants include stinging nettle, black seed plantain (a native and host plant for the common buckeye butterfly), mugwort and motherwort, and mullein, a striking plant that can grow as much as eight feet tall. Allen’s experience as a Master Gardener informed his choices of plants that would thrive in our local growing conditions.

In the backyard, Allen and Jenny grow vegetables and more herbs in raised beds, and care for several large native trees, including an Elm and an American persimmon. A combination worm bin and compost bin holds 7 cubic yards of compost. A path leads to the Roland Run stream, which borders the back yard. Allen and Jenny have created a community organization, Friends of the Roland Run. Along with a team of neighbors, they test the stream monthly for pollutants, including bacteria. They regularly send this data to the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.

Taking inspiration from a love of hiking, Beth Miller has cultivated landscapes overflowing with native plants. Her garden includes hundreds of understory plants, shrubs, climbing vines and 12 trees. The front lawn is covered with a soaring willow oak and mature redbud. The shady conditions led to the replacement of turf grass 3-5 years ago with vegetation that would be encountered on the trail. There are ferns, green and gold, black cohash, native ginger, trout lily, sedges, goat’s beard, beauty berry, doll’s eyes and many more. The side of the house features an impressive rain garden overflowing with plants to attract pollinators and divert runoff. Aster, swamp milk weed, joepye weed, swamp hibiscus, false blue indigo and red bee balm keep the house dryer and attract butterflies and flying insects.

The back garden was expanded to replace rows of privet and English ivy to create striking garden beds. Noteworthy plants are black eyed susan, brown eyed susan, ironweed, monarda, virginia blue bells, native geranium and enough rhubarb to bake pie after delicious pie. Combined with trees such as holly, black gum and tulip poplar, Beth’s woodlands sustain birds, squirrels and foxes. The deck features a sweeping dutchman’s stove pipe vine, which include a few chrysalises which will hopefully emerge into adult pipevine swallowtail butterflies. An additional vegetable garden contains cucumbers, native strawberries, green beans and tomatoes. This charming landscape serves as a superhighway for wildlife and a cozy home for Maryland’s native plants.

This Campus Hills garden is an inspiration for anyone feeling overwhelmed with invasive plants. Just over a year ago, a large portion of Elizabeth’s yard was a thick grove of bamboo. She’d been worrying about what to do about it for the first seven years in her home. Last year she and her husband hired a professional with a front loader to help them remove the bamboo. They continue to dig out rhizomes, but it has already become a manageable area to replant with native plants. In its first year, this pollinator garden holds many native treasures including yarrow, boneset, golden ragwort, coreopsis, bee balm, red bud saplings, and much more. It’s become a garden to enjoy instead of an invasive problem. In addition to a brush pile, salvaged bamboo shoots were placed upright at the yard’s periphery to create a few dead hedges. Both of these touches create natural habitats where insects and other wildlife can overwinter and shelter.

Another portion of the reclaimed yard has been made into a pond with a fountain. Pink muhly grass, butterfly weed, seersucker sedge, and other native plants surround the pond. The pond’s fresh water will benefit birds, amphibians, and small mammals as they visit the yard.

In addition to removing bamboo, a 200 square foot area of English Ivy has been removed from a shady area on the other side of the house. The ivy was climbing the established trees and putting them at risk of suffocation and damage.

The native trees incorporated into the yard’s canopy include 2 black cherries, an eastern Hemlock and a silver maple. A newly planted service berry, sweet bay magnolia, fringe trees, paw paws, black walnut and red cedar trees will add to the present tree population and increase the benefit to wildlife. The trees also filter and cool the air and prevent rainwater runoff which is an important environmental consideration that helped this yard to recently become Bay Wise Certified. For this yard, the transformation of the past year is quite an accomplishment, but the growth still to come will be truly amazing to see.

Kate’s garden was a finalist in the Breaking Ground category in 2025, her first year garden in Towson, and she’s been working to increase her native plantings ever since. She credits her husband, Kieren, for toiling to remove a huge barberry shrub from their side yard. Kate filled that space under two mature American hollies with a lovely new shade bed featuring Christmas fern, eastern wood fern, lady fern and maidenhair fern, white wood aster, heuchera and carex pensylvanica. The sun-loving bed she installed last year in the front near York Road has matured beautifully, attracting pollinators as the flowers bloom and gradually give way to the next show-stopper: first ragwort (Packera obovate), then penstemon, spiderwort, butterfly weed, bee balm, coneflowers, rudbeckia and wrinkleleaf goldenrod.

The couple, originally from the U.K., have spent much of their time tackling invasives like the barberry and Japanese pachysandra, and they have future plans to replace a tall row of Rose of Sharon bushes along their rear fence. They’re also caring for a host of native canopy trees, including more American hollies, 2 huge white pines, a basswood and an ancient 30-foot-tall native dogwood. They’ve planted red chokeberry, buttonbush and coral honeysuckle, and maintain a rainbarrel, compost bin and brush piles. They “leave the leaves” and use no pesticides. A notable water source is the handmade ceramic birdbath they unearthed when removing invasive vines that covered the backyard two years ago. Kate has submitted her application for Bay-wise certification and is hoping to schedule a site visit soon. She’s already an enthusiastic ambassador for native gardening, and adding Bay-wise signage along York Road would boost her opportunities to talk with neighbors about the environmental benefits of natives.

This beautiful pollinator garden was started in the fall of 2024 as a collaboration project between NeighborSpace and Wildside Nursery in Greenbrier. Located in the front yard, the garden provides lovely curb appeal all season long and demonstrates to passersby that supporting the native ecosystem can also be beautiful. Red buds, fleabane, serviceberry, butterfly weed, and an apple tree provide early Spring blooms. In early summer, colorful coneflower, spotted bee balm and mountain mint bloom. Then, late in the season, goldenrod, black-eyed Susans, oak-leaf hydrangea, and New England Aster will continue to provide beautiful color into the winter.

Inspired by the pollinators and birds visiting her garden, Kyra is expanding her pollinator garden to increase its yearlong wildlife value. A beautiful blue heirloom birdbath from her father provides water and hydration for wildlife. Winterberry holly berries support wildlife through the winter and milkweed provides a host plant for monarchs to lay their eggs. The placement of the garden under an existing Shumard Oak (Quercus shumardii) and an apple tree creates a wonderful habitat for insects that need an understory area to overwinter as eggs, larvae, pupae, or even adults. A younger Shumard Oak is planted nearby. Shumard Oaks are known as keystone species in Maryland. They play a crucial role in local ecosystems and support a diverse range of wildlife. They will also grow to increase the local tree canopy which will capture carbon, clean and cool air, filter groundwater, prevent runoff, provide shade and beauty.

The Govans Presbyterian Church property is a green refuge along York Road just south of Northern Parkway, with its canopy of mature trees surrounding the Gothic Revival stone sanctuary dating to 1844. Its labyrinth garden, part of the Nature Sacred spaces, has long attracted passers-by and parishioners alike. In the past several years, though, an army of volunteers has enhanced the church’s mission as an Earth Care Congregation. They’ve replaced many plants in the labyrinth with natives. With help from Blue Water Baltimore and several other grants, they’ve installed a huge bioretention garden featuring at least 90 percent natives, including several eye-catching ninebark shrubs that have matured beautifully. Of educational benefit are plant identification cards and a large sign explaining how the bioretention garden helps the watershed.

The congregation’s latest project is even more impressive: converting one-third of an acre of front lawn into the Govans Community Farm, including a large native pollinator garden facing York Road. The new garden was designed by farm team member Deb Smith with plants from American Natives Nursery. It was funded by a grant from the National Wildlife Federation, with church volunteers supplying the sweat equity. Already swaths of native plants are blooming along sweeping paths, including asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed) and monarda fistulosa (bee balm). There’s also penstemon, baptisia, black-eyed Susans, oenotherea fruticosa (sundrops) and smooth blue aster for three seasons of bloom.

Signage from the National Wildlife Federation explains “Pollinators Put Food on Your Plate,” tying the native garden to the new vegetable raised beds installed a few yards away. They provide produce for the Cares Food Pantry (there’s also a refrigerator that neighbors can access for perishable donations). Thanks to a grant from the state through the Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative, the project will also include a community pavilion and underground cistern for water retention.

In 2023, Towson Presbyterian Church broke ground for an ambitious rainwater runoff management project. This project was funded with a Chesapeake Bay Trust grant, with design and plantings from Blue Water Baltimore and Cityscape Engineering. In the beautiful courtyard in the center of the stone church building, water from the roofs runs into an expandable bladder and rain barrel, multiple raised rain garden planter beds, through a permeable swale/riverbed and into a large rain garden in the lower portion of the courtyard. Some of the native plants the rain garden includes are blue-eyed grass, foam flower, chokeberry, phlox and white turtlehead. The surrounding courtyard has a beautiful mature winterberry, sweet bay magnolia and redbud, along with many inkberry holly bushes. Courtyard garden rainwater works its way underground to a second rain garden on the lower side of the church parking lot. This garden includes common milkweed, baptisia, clethra, blue flag iris, and other native plants. These plants will filter and capture most water runoff from the roof, parking lot, and other impermeable surfaces.

Last year with help from the Interfaith Partners of the Chesapeake and the Department of Natural Resources, 13 native trees were planted on TPC grounds. Significant effort has been placed on removing invasive species and thoughtfully increasing the wildlife benefit of the TPC property. TPC members maintain a vegetable garden on the church grounds from which produce is donated to the local food pantry, ACTC. Butterfly weed, black-eyed Susans, yarrow, tickseed, blue verbena, and other native plants surrounding this garden provide habitat and welcome pollinators for the crops.

TPC has been a certified Earth Care Congregation for the past 17 years. TPC has an Earth Care Action team which helps the church to research and implement ways to be stewards of the earth. The congregation also maintains a 263-acre nature reserve in Parkton, MD. A few of the environmental accomplishments this year include coordinating with the Neighborhood Forest program to help children plant native black cherry trees at their homes and adding a commercial composter to the church kitchen.

Pegg Nemoff has lived in her Lauraville home for 20 years, and in that time she has completely transformed her landscape. There is no grass anywhere; the front yard, deeply shaded with a mature Sassafras tree and three Redbuds, has been planted heavily with Packera aurea. Stone paths lead to the back yard filled with dense plantings of flowering native plants, trees, vines, a pond, and vegetable gardens.

Pegg says she began replacing her standard garden plants with native plants in 2016, when a monarch landed in her yard with a sticker on its wing and she learned about Monarch banding. Her yard is stunningly beautiful, and very productive in terms of the dozens of pollinating insects and birds visiting her native plants and trees, and the vegetables and fruit she grows in her gardens. Because Pegg lives in Lauraville, she could not enter our contest; but her yard is so amazing, we wanted to see it and share it in our contest.