Just east of the arched bridge on Main Street in Ellicott City, a left turn onto meandering Oella Avenue leads to a hairpin left onto Race Road, which dead-ends at Lisa and Tom Baum's driveway.
Tucked among the hydrangea bushes there, a small blue sign reads: "Bay-Wise Demonstration Landscape: Landscape practices for a healthy Chesapeake Bay. Inquire within."
The year-old marker has drawn almost no spontaneous inquiries at the secluded property. At 6-by-7 inches, the sign appears more like a discreet badge of honor than an invitation.
To make it easier for do-it-yourselfers to learn how to apply landscape management techniques from the MD Bay-Wise Program to their yards, Howard County Master Gardeners will conduct a public tour of the Baums' certified property Sept. 13.
"When we moved here four years ago, we knew we wanted to be good stewards of the environment," said Lisa Baum, who is a master gardener.
Since their 11/2-acre lot abuts the Patapsco River and Patapsco Valley State Park, the couple believed it would be especially important "to do the right things" to maintain the home's grounds, she said.
Bay-Wise techniques help landowners improve the quality of local waterways and avoid polluting the bay by curtailing pesticide and fertilizer use, among other practices, Baum said. The statewide program is operated by staff members at the University of Maryland College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
While the tour will make the Baums' property a living classroom for an afternoon, six years ago the lot was nothing more than a natural extension of the hilly parkland surrounding it.
When the couple bought the property in 2002, they had to convince a contractor that it was buildable by clearing portions of it themselves, Lisa Baum said. Tom Baum, an architect, had planned to design a home that took advantage of the existing, multilevel topography. They moved in two years later.
The couple's three-level Craftsman-style house towers above the driveway and is surrounded by lush native plants. Purple coneflowers and Black-eyed Susans gracefully tilt toward the bluestone entrance steps. At the left, the lawn tumbles steeply amid mature river birches and redbuds to meet the river's edge.
"I wake up every day knowing I am so fortunate to live in these surroundings," Lisa Baum said.
Joining the county's 140-member Master Gardeners 18 months ago provided Baum another outlet for sharing her lifelong passion for plants and flowers, she said. And pursuing certification for her new yard in the Bay-Wise landscaping program seemed like the perfect blend of hobby and duty.
"The Baum property is well worth seeing as it demonstrates excellent management procedures in a time when we need to conserve resources," said Georgia Eacker, program coordinator at the county's Cooperative Extension office in Ellicott City.
"The Baums' yard may be unique, but on top of its aesthetics it is a certified Bay-Wise property" and will be used as an educational tool, Eacker said.
Five people who have earned the master gardener designation will be stationed around signs in the yard to explain the practices in place, Baum said. The event will not be completely foreign for the Baums, who fielded more than 500 visitors to their home during the 71st Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage in May.
The county's program was started in 1997, a year after the concept of Bay-Wise landscaping was born in Maryland, Eacker said. She counts herself among the 25 master gardeners who own certified properties in Howard County, noting that her yard is mostly woodlands and requires nontraditional gardening techniques.
Fourteen other Maryland counties and Baltimore City offer certification in Bay-Wise landscaping, according to the program's Web site. The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses most of Maryland, all of Washington, more than half of Virginia, a sliver of western Delaware, the middle third of Pennsylvania and a snippet of south-central New York.
"Many people doubt that what they do to their lawns actually has an impact on the bay," Baum said. "Storm drains and sewers really do eventually lead to the Chesapeake."
Baum said most of her labor is concentrated in the perennial garden, and that adhering to Bay-Wise techniques lightens the workload elsewhere in the yard. A prime example is the slogan "mow 'em high, let 'em lie," which promotes cutting grass less frequently and then allowing the clippings to serve as both mulch and a weed deterrent.
A second "green" measure that results in less work is "allowing good bugs to eat bad bugs" instead of applying pesticides, she said.
Gardening with native plants also is desirable because they are known to be suitable for the existing climate and will provide appropriate food and shelter for native wildlife, Baum said. Her observations bear this out: Baum has seen 23 varieties of birds on her property, ranging from majestic species, such as the great blue heron and bald eagle, to wild turkey and woodpeckers.
