Sligo Creek Habitat Garden

Rebecca Wall, homeowner and Landscape Designer
Backyard Bounty, Landscape Contractor
Montgomery County RainScapes Program

The homeowner fell in love with this property because of its proximity to Sligo  Creek Parkway and the many mature Oak trees in the neighborhood. She is a Landscape Designer with ecological garden design firm Backyard Bounty and wanted to create a space that would be nourishing for her young family as well as providing habitat for wildlife. The property is located uphill from the Sligo Creek Parkway and Sligo Creek, an important tributary of the Anacostia River watershed and in an established residential neighborhood with typical suburban landscaping dominated by non-native evergreen shrubs and lawn. Additionally, the rear of the property produced a high volume of stormwater, and the position of the house on a hill with mature canopy trees made a backyard stormwater installation impossible. Backyard Bounty removed the entire front lawn and existing shrubs. A series of piped downspout conveyances were installed to route stormwater from approximately 540 SF of roof area around the house. Stormwater now daylights into a densely planted rain garden and overflows into surrounding native plant gardens. With the exception of a field grown Yellowwood tree, the homeowner/designer and her partner installed all of the plants themselves with a majority of landscape plugs installed with a drill and bulb auger.

They invited neighbors to join in the installation to learn how to achieve this at home, and many joined in (from age 2 and up!). The neighborhood is very social and full of many active gardeners, so the homeowner/designer saw an opportunity to create a seating area in the front yard that would draw neighbors in and demonstrate the beauty of a native garden. In the year after installation, three residences on this block added native plant gardens, citing this property as inspiration. This project was supported by a RainScapes rebate.