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Ashburn Village, Loudoun

Between 2017 and 2019, Ashburn Village installed 7 pollinator gardens at Ashburn, Tippecanoe and Beech Lakes.The gardens grew in well, but few residents knew what they were or where to find them. The Ashburn Village Landscaping Committee solved that problem by adding large signs. Professionally-designed signs are available but can be pricey. They solved that problem by designing them themselvses using PowerPoint, photos from the public domain, and a few photos sourced from photographers in Facebook groups who willingly shared their rights to them. (All the photos on the Plant NOVA Natives/Plant NOVA Trees websites have been donated to the public domain, with a few exceptions where credit is given.) He worked with Quail Run Signs, a local company, who provided the signs with sleeves and aluminum posts for around $270 each. Funding was provided by a grant from Microsoft.

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Cascades, a very large HOA in Loudoun

The HOA leaders created a five year plan that was budget neutral: no increase was needed of the already low assessment. The first step was to map out which areas were managed by the HOA and which by private landowners. Priority was then given to the walking paths, which needed to maintain an open line of sight for a feeling of safety. The roads had been designed so that foot paths were at the bottom of steep slopes which were being mown, resulting in erosion that was depositing sediment on the paths. Very low walls and swales were installed to catch the sediment, and the plan is to re-plant the slopes as meadows.

River Creek, a large HOA in Loudoun

A 7.5 acre common area fronting the river had been kept as mown lawn and was almost never used. This space was converted to a park with conservation landscaping providing a buffer along the river to capture runoff. An area around the basketball hoops was kept as turf grass, but the rest was changed to natural landscaping with paths. Read more about it here.  And see this wonderful series of short videos about it here.

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River Creek
Broadlands

Broadlands, a large HOA in Loudoun

Led by its Conservation Landscaping Committee, this community has become a National Wildlife Federation Certified Community Wildlife Habitat. The committee provides native plant landscaping information suitable to suburban communities through, monthly community newsletter, social media, and other community programs. A large open space that was just maintained as lawn was converted to a demonstration pollinator garden and it includes plant identification tags. Planting a few thousand native treesaround the community common spaces and the local schools has been an ongoing effort to restore and increase the tree canopy.

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Sycamore Hills, a small HOA in Leesburg

The space in front of the office was converted into a demonstration garden. Children and adults stop by all the time to admire the butterflies and other interesting residents of this naturescape. In 2019, the HOA will be replacing the landscaping around the entrance-way sign with native plants. They also plan another pollinator garden that will have interpretive signage.

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Sycamore Hills

Pavilions at Huntington,  Fairfax County

From the organizer: With my own community association (in a very urban area) we have transformed the landscaping on Common Area property such that all new plantings since 2009 have been natives and this has been worked into the Community's landscaping plan that was voted on and adopted by the Community in 2009. It is my hope that this will be updated in 2018.

 

We have done a lot of work to improve environmental conditions in our town home community which is located nearby the Huntington metro station.  This has been well received by a majority of community members.

 

We have experienced bumps along the way since 2009 but have been successful in many of our efforts.  Where plants fail, we simply replant with something different. Earth Sangha, Nature by Design, and the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District's seedlings have been our plant sources.

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We have accomplished the following:

1. converted more than 50% of the Common Area turf grass to multi-purpose mulched planting beds filled with native shrubs, grasses and herbaceous perennials.

 

2. We have planted more than 75 native shrubs and trees on Common Area property,

 

3. We have established a native pollinator meadow in the stormwater management area for our community and led the effort to convert an unused and degraded grassy area in a neighboring FCPA park to a native meadow for pollinators.

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Before

After

4.  The Community's common area property is a Northern Virginia Bird Alliance Wildlife Sanctuary (formerly Audubon-at-Home) certified wildlife habitat. Once we installed the signs, I heard from a few property owners wanting to get one of their own since it is such a beautiful sign!

 

5. Goals of our projects have been to install low-maintenance, multi-purpose mulched planting beds that will serve to buffer noise, act as a privacy screen/transitional screening between our town home community and the apartment complex next door and the busy streets on the boundary of our neighborhood, absorb stormwater, filter stormwater from areas heavily used by pets, and more important these mulched planting beds establish natural biological corridors connecting to the adjacent parkland extending habitat for our native wildlife.

 

6. We received a grant from the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District in 2017 to transform additional areas from turf grass to multi-purpose mulched planting beds, filling these with a diversity of native shrubs, grasses and herbaceous perennials.

 

7. One of the greatest challenges we have in my community is that Landscaping Contractors are interested in cutting grass only.  They have no knowledge of native plants. We have had many native plants simply pulled out of the ground because the landscapers thought they were weeds (weeds to them are native plants with tasty seeds to birds and wildlife).  Maple leaf viburnum is an example of this. They thought (I guess) it was an Eastern Red Maple seedling....so they pulled it out. Then I planted an Eastern Red Maple Seedling, put a fence around it so they would know it was intentional, and they pulled it out anyway. Working with Landscaping contractors is challenging and requires constant vigilance. We have structured our community's common area landscaping to make it easy for the landscapers to stay out of the mulched planting beds. And I give them detailed instructions about where to work and where not to work.

 

8. We wrote a Community Landscaping Plan and it was approved in 2009.  It includes a focus on native plants on common area property. Now that we accepted a grant from the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District's Conservation Assistance Program, we are required to maintain that landscaping with native plantings for 10 years.  This is helpful from a sustainability perspective. We have separated our common area property into regions and each region has slightly different growing conditions, and of course, a different plant list to achieve the goals of that planting area.

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Pavilions

HOAs within the Reston Association, Fairfax County

 

Reston Association was one of the first Biophilic Cities.  A detailed description of their work on native plants can be found in this Power Point. A new initiative in 2020 is a pledge drive.

 

Besides the Reston Association being the overall HOA, the individual townhouse neighborhoods are their own HOAs.  From one of the organizers: So, one thing REACT did was to have neighborhood meetings on yard and garden care where we presented information on native plants, rain barrels, composting, and natural pest care.  The idea was to loosely use some of the community-based social marketing principles. Neighbors working together as peers. In addition to gardeners, we wanted to attract people who may not be as interested in gardening, but wanted to go to a gathering on their street and see their neighbors.  We tried to involve the person responsible for landscaping on the neighborhood common property. We did follow-up reminders and surveys. If they wanted, we’d walk around the neighborhood pointing out areas with invasives that could be replaced.

 

We had gatherings in one of the neighbor’s home and passed out a booklet of information we put together.  We went through it and then had informal questions/discussions. (We also did this for recycling, energy and transportation).  Based on our surveys, there was always some improvement in each neighborhood (removing invasives, planting natives, starting to compost, or adding a rain barrel, or reducing pesticide use). 

 

We delivered the surveys door-to-door.  We either had boxes at porches throughout the neighborhood that people could put their survey in, or we gave them an addressed, stamped envelope to mail them back to us.  We gave them about 3 weeks to respond. About a week before we gave them a reminder flyer door-to-door, thanking them if they had responded and reminding them if they hadn’t.

Sycamore Ridge, Oak Hill, Fairfax County

Wanting to promote eco-friendly practices that would save re-planting and watering costs, Sycamore Ridge HOA began a sustainability plan that included switching from annuals, which required seasonal planting, replanting, and watering fees, to naturescaping and the use of organic pesticide and fertilizers. They hired a landscape company to convert part of the entrance’s border plantings to include those found in a naturalized local meadow.

Fairlington, a complex of condo associations in Arlington

North Fairlington: This community's priorities include succession planning to maintain abundant, diverse tree canopy, stormwater management that alleviates drainage and erosion, and other landscaping modifications to preserve the integrity, safety, and accessibility of common areas while also protecting local flora, fauna, and streams. North Fairlington has also reduced pesticide use significantly.

For details and a great deal of inspiration, click here.

 

Trees: Our Condo Association hired Nate Erwin to identify and tag all of our trees - about 450 total.  They are identified by number, common and scientific name, and location.  It was a massive project, but it has been helpful in so many ways.  If we notice a sick or diseased tree we can quickly track it - do we have others of that species?  Are other communities having trouble with this species of trees?  Oaks have been at the forefront with Sudden Death. 

 

We have a landscaping service.  If we notice a dead limb that needs lopped off, we can notify the contractor (he also has a list of trees and their courts) which tree it is and have him go at it. 

 

We always have tree work done in the fall - the culling of the branches.  In the past, trees were identified on a walkthrough with our committee and the contractor. We were never sure if the trees they identified were actually the trees that got trimmed.  It was a little loosely-goosey.  Now there is no doubt.

One final use for the tags is to keep track of our collection.  When we add new trees we assign them a number but do not put it on the tree until it has been in the collection for a year. Residents can look up trees by their tag number to find out what kind they are.

With South Fairlington: To find out how several HOAs in the Fairlington community came together to pursue a common goal of planting native perennials, shrubs and trees and pollinator-friendly plants, see this page.

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Fairlington

Willingsford Conservancy, Loudoun 

Willingsford HOA has an unusual structure: a separate non-profit entity manages the 2000 acres of open space. A large native plant demonstration garden and meadows are next to the farm stand with interpretive signs. 

An extensive website explains how the land is managed. 

Willingsford
Stonehurst

Stonehurst, an HOA in Fairfax

 

 

 

Stonehurst Homeowners Association (SHA) is a community of 242 townhomes on ~28 acres, with ~7.8 acres of lawn to maintain. Their Board approved a comprehelnseve Master PLan for the landscaping in December 2020. Click here to view.

Goals
 Create an updated colonial style with a mix of old-fashioned favorites and natives
 Define common areas – edge and limit plantings inside common walks close to houses
 Create four season interest and add more evergreens for screening and habitat

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Burke Centre Conservancy,

second largest HOA in Fairfax

 

The Burke Centre Conservancy (BCC) Open Space Committee (OSC) is a group of volunteers supporting the BCC Board of Trustees (BOT) with engagement, training, recommendations and integration regarding environmental affairs and impacts within the Burke Centre community to aid in keeping Burke Centre in line with its motto, "In Harmony with Nature".  The OSC works directly with the BCC Resources Department (under Ms. Stephanie Martin) as well as the Executive Director (Mr. Patrick Gloyd) in making recommendations for changes. 2024 has been an especially successful year for this effort within Burke Centre and the OSC has achieved many goals that support not only Burke Centre but Fairfax County.  The OSC establishing the following in 2024:

1. Establishment of an Open Space Page on the Conservancy website with links to native Virginia trees and plant resources, invasive vine identification sites and allows community wide use in selection of native Virginia species. 

2. An Invasive Vine Program throughout Burke Centre under Mr. Bill Ade, who with his volunteers successfully removed vines from over 300 trees bringing the total to over 1600 trees in less than 2 years. The OSC also enlisted the support of Scout Troop 1347 this year as the program recommences in November.

3. A Tree Planting and Maintenance Program within this aging community. The OSC, under Mr. Craig Willett and Mike Hathaway, established a program linking Burke Centre with Fairfax ReLeaf Virginia and provided trees to BCC Clusters and resident homeowners. The group has planted over 200 trees in community open spaces this year and over 1400 trees in the past 5 years. They obtained VDoF grants that provide planting material, stakes and protectors to Clusters and homeowners and provide training on how to properly plant native Viriginia trees. The OSC focused attention on the need to establish a Burke Centre Forest Management Plan and obtained BCC BOT approval which engaged the Virginia Department of Forestry to commence a community wide Forestry Management Plan for Burke Centre, a first of its kind for the community.

4. The OSC developed, and BCC enacted a Pond Maintenance Plan for Burke Centre's 6 community ponds. This plan included the establishment of standard maintenance requirements which protect wildlife and support reduction in chemical additives to the ponds with the introduction of pond aeration equipment. During 2024, aeration equipment was installed in Bass Pond, (the second of six ponds to receive this equipment) and established a plan for its installation on the remaining 4 ponds. This equipment reduces algae blooms and the use of chemicals to combat these blooms.

5. After a major drainpipe failure on Meadow Pond which drained the entire pond of water within 12 hours, the OSC under Michael Holmes (Chair) lead an effort to organize Burke Centre residents to save the fish, turtle and frog population. Within 4 hours of the failure this team relocated over 1000 fish, turtles and frogs to the other ponds thereby preventing an ecological and wildlife disaster in the community. The team also supported the restocking of the ponds with fish during 2024 which was also a first of its kind in Burke Centre and included restocking in the Pond Maintenance Plan ensuring the health of the aquatic and pond life for the future.

6. The OSC engaged the BCC concerning use of insecticides in Burke Centre and promoted its removal from Burke Centre grounds maintenance contracts.

7. The OSC worked with the Conservancy to identify and obtain an engineering study with regards to erosion issue observed after completion of the new Fairfax County Facility at Fred's Oak.  This study will provide recommendations that the Conservancy will address with the County Board of Supervisors to help alleviate this inadvertent erosion issue.

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