Maryland is undergoing extensive urban and suburban development. Many small streams -- which make up the majority of the state’s waterways -- are located in or adjacent to residential areas. These areas negatively affect streams through excess nutrient and sediment inputs, thermal impacts, and degraded habitat for living resources.

PWP staff met with representatives from similar existing programs to learn about their successes and problems with getting their programs started. We then developed an ad campaign that included radio advertisements, newspaper articles, and newspaper classified ads. We also spread the word through presentations to local community groups and through door-to-door delivery of brochures in several promising neighborhoods. Newspaper and word-of-mouth contacts resulted in the most requests, though a large population probably received watershed education information via radio.

The heart of the Backyard Buffers program is the “buffer-in-a-bag,” a tool used to distribute educational material along with the irresistible free trees and shrubs. The bag consists of 25 native tree and shrub seedlings of five species suitable for streamside planting, instructions on planting and care, a coupon redeemable at several local nurseries for supplies and additional native plant stock, fact sheets about streamside buffers and native plants, informative brochures, and a list of internet resources for additional programs and activities.