Beautification Project 2023-Present
In 2023, BNCA partnered with ANC SMD 5B04 to start a native plant garden at the Welcome to Brookland sign at 12th Street and Rhode Island Ave NE. We raised over $2000. Right Proper Brewing Company, one of our local craft breweries, matched $1000 in donations. Thank you to everyone who donated!
We planted over 100 plants in the area directly around the sign. Most of the plants were lovingly transplanted from our home gardens. Volunteers brought in truckloads of free compost from the city to amend the soil. Our local hardware store, Annie’s Ace Hardware, generously donated $1000 worth of mulch, and delivered it to the spot, stacking the bags so high you could not read the sign!
In Spring of 2024, we planted the rest of the area adjacent to the sign around the corner and up 12th Street. Most of the plants were awarded to the Brookland Neighborhood Civic Association through a plant grant from Bona Terra, a local landscaping company. Some plants were donated to us from Three Part Harmony Farm. Others were transplanted and grown from seed by gardeners in Brookland. Thank you to everyone who came out to help us! In a single weekend volunteers installed the rest of the native plant garden.
Looking forward
We are going to keep the Welcome to Brookland sign clean and weed-free. The money we raised will help us to maintain the garden through 2024, ensuring it is well established. We are also planning to install a plaque that explains what the garden is and markers that identify plants sometime this year.
Get involved! We are out there once a month to weed and pick up trash. Sign up below if you would like to hear about opportunities to volunteer.
What We Planted:
Achillea millefolium, Yarrow
Anemone virginiana, Thimbleflower
Aronia melanocarpa, Chokeberry
Asclepias syriaca, Common Milkweed
Carex appalachia and C. pensylvanica, Sedge
Clethra alnifolia, Summer sweet
Echinacea purpurea, Purple coneflower
Heuchera americana, Alum root
Hydrangea quercifolia and H. quercifolia var. ‘Ruby Slippers’, Oakleaf hydrangea
Hypericum prolificum, Shrubby St. John’s wort
Ilex verticillata, Winterberry
Pentstemon digitalis and P. hirsutus, Beardtongue
Pycnanthemum tenuifolium, Mountain mint
Rudbeckia lacinata, Green-headed coneflower
Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, Aromatic aster
Yucca filamentosa, Adam’s needle