A new garden behind City Hall in Bowie, Maryland provides excellent examples of the many alternatives to traditional, high maintenance lawns. City employees and community volunteers came together to learn about BayScapes and design the garden using BayScapes concepts such as using native plants, reducing fertilizer needs, providing habitat, xeriscaping (landscaping for minimal water use) and integrated pest management (using pesticides only as a last resort).

The design team created a variety of gardens including:

• a butterfy garden with columbine, bee balm, asters, blazing star, wild blue phlox, sweet pepperbush, wild azalea and mountain laurel
• a perennial garden with a wide variety of showy perennials including coral bells, wild geranium, black-eyed Susan and purple coneflower
• an ornamental grass garden with a variety of native ornamental grasses of different heights
• a rock garden planted with shade-loving plants such as ferns, Jack-in-the-pulpit, false Solomon's seal and wild ginger
• a bog planted with water-loving plants such as ferns, pitcher plants, cattails and sweet flag
• a wildflower meadow seeded with a mixture of wildflowers for a diversity of color

The Bowie BayScapes Gardens are open to the public, free of charge. Follow the sidewalk around to the north end of City Hall at 2614 Kenhill Drive, Bowie, Maryland, 20715. For more information about the Bowie BayScapes Project call Lori Shirley, Planning Department at (301) 262-6200

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This page features the planting, and the results 2 months later. There are 14 photos, so allow enough time for them to load.

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