The assault on Fort George G. Meade in Maryland began in broad daylight with 150 volunteers and dignitaries armed with shovels and trowels.

Their mission: change the sterile terrain into a BayScape, an environmentally-sound landscape that will benefit people, wildlife and the Chesapeake Bay.

The Service’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office and the non-profit Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay developed the BayScapes program to serve multiple purposes: to help federal agencies in the Chesapeake Bay watershed meet President Clinton’s 1994 directive to improve federal landscaping practices; and to fulfill the National Performance Review’s recommendation to provide wildlife habitat, conserve water and prevent pollution while reducing costs for maintenance and the disposal of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Additionally, through the BayScapes program, businesses and citizens can reduce their input of chemicals to the Chesapeake Bay and create habitat for native species.

“Federal facilities such as Fort Meade are not the only areas reaping the benefits of BayScaping,” said Britt Slattery, BayScapes coordinator for the Chesapeake Bay Field Office. “Anyone can practice BayScaping, whether they have hundreds of acres of land or a container garden on a patio.”

Volunteers have planted BayScapes on various sites throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed to serve as models for the public. One recent project is a 10,000 square foot garden on the Carroll County Times newspaper property in Westminster, Maryland. This BayScape eventually will tie into a riparian restoration and watershed management project on Longwell Run, a tributary of the Patapsco River in Maryland.

The Chesapeake Bay Field Office encourages private citizens to become BayScapers by providing information on native plants for use in landscaping and habitat restoration projects, as well as a list of nurseries that carry them.

“Using these planting guides, citizens are taking stewardship of the environment into their own hands, creating wildlife habitat in backyards while reducing the amount of pollution they contribute to local waterways,” said Slattery.

The Fort Meade BayScape project included two “rain gardens” landscaped with native vegetation to provide habitat for migratory songbirds, butterflies and other local wildlife. Native plants require less maintenance, water, fertilizers and pesticides, thereby reducing chemicals added to the environment.

These plants also filter and retain water runoff during storms, cleaning the water and reducing erosion as it flows into a nearby stream that runs into the Patuxent River, one of the largest rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay.

“The project sets the tone for the rest of development on the base and surrounding area,” said Bill Matuszeski, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program.

Kathryn Reshetiloff, Chesapeake Bay Field Office, Annapolis, Maryland