DATE: Friday, October 17, 1997              TAG: 9710150128

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 10   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LEWIS KRAUSKOPF, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   66 lines

EDUCATORS GET A 2-DAY CRASH COURSE IN BAYSCAPING

They came, they learned, they planted.

And after completing a two-day workshop, the 50 or so partcipants were prepared to pass on techniques about environmentally sound landscaping.

Last Thursday, community educators and organizers got down and dirty at Great Bridge Lock Park, where they became one with mulch and soil.

An afternoon of sweating in unseasonably warm weather came after a day and a half was spent at the Chesapeake Public Library, where the group was given a crash course entitled ``From Our Backyards to the Bay.''

By the second day, they were eager for earth.

``Gimme some more compost,'' said Don Marx, hauling a wheelbarrow-full of mulch.

Marx is the program coordinator for the Chesapeake Bay Youth Conservation Corps, an environmental program for at-risk children.

He was excited about explaining to the children what he had learned about protecting the Bay, so they would know what they were working for.

Marx and his fellow educators and community organizers were given the basics of BayScaping - landscaping that prevents pollution while restoring wildlife habitats.

One tree-growing tenet they learned: Plant native vegetation.

Such growing doesn't demand as much fertilizer - a main concern at the training workshop, which was sponsored by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, the Elizabeth River Project and the Chesapeake Parks and Recreation Department.

Nutrients that come from fertilizer, such as phosphorous and nitrogen, seep into the dirt and eventually will end up polluting the Bay.

Homeowners use more fertilizer per yard than farmers, said Sarah Richardson, BayScapes coordinator with the Alliance.

``And even if you think you live way up . . . everybody's got a creek nearby that drains out (into the Bay),'' said Britt Slattery, BayScapes program coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Thus, the 50 men and women hunched over recently shoveled holes, ready to put in saplings - like the Flowering Dogwood.

The dogwood provides berries for wildlife, qualifying it as a beneficial vegetation.

A few rows down from the dogwood, the planters were setting up a butterfly garden - by planting brightly colored vegetation that would bloom in the summer.

Such diversity was another tenet the group learned.

``The more layers you have in the landscape, the more (wildlife) niches,'' Richardson said. ``The more different kinds of plants, the more food sources.''

At the end of the day, the participants would be charged with replanting their knowledge in others.

Catherine Midgett hoped she could bring her fourth-grade students at Great Bridge Intermediate to the landscaped area. And maybe do some landscaping of their own at the school's court yard and nature trail.

``We need to get children more aware of the environment,'' she said. MEMO: For questions about BayScaping, call the Elizabeth River Project,

625-3648. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by CHARLIE MEADS

Victoria Pepper, left, a Master Gardener intern, and Don Marx,

program coordinator for Chesapeake Bay Youth Conservation Corps,

plant shrubs along the water's edge at Great Bridge Lock Park as

part of a BayScapes training workshop.

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