Chesapeake Bay Trust

Community Tree Triangle Project – Spring ’26 Update

/ Anna White

By Cheryl Copeland, Community Design Committee

Have you seen the two new flowering trees keeping our community evergreen tree company on the grassy island where Luzerne and Glen Ross merge east of 2nd Avenue? These are just the first signs of exciting things to come to this location!

Many thanks to the Chesapeake Bay Trust for supporting this community project!

The Chesapeake Bay Trust recently awarded NWCA their Community Engagement & Restoration Mini Grant ($5,000) to put toward some of the landscaping in the master plan designed by Strawberry Fields, LLC in 2023, to be installed this fall.

The community tree triangle project is not simply to beautify a space enjoyed by a handful of neighbors and the occasional passerby. The Chesapeake Bay Trust awarded us this grant for “community engagement and restoration” because this space has a 100-year history within the neighborhood as a gathering place, which will provide educational opportunities, environmental benefits, and encourage year-round use by the greater community.

The full plan is to replace all the grass with a variety of primarily native perennials in amended soil, stepstone paths, and a circular river-stone patio. Grant terms include a commitment to include educational signage and provide workshops for neighbors and youth groups at the triangle and to teach about the sustainability of this type of conservation gardening using native plants to support pollinators in a way that is both sustainable and easily replicated in their own yards.

The estimated cost for this work is more than the grant received, so the Community Design Committee continues to pursue other funding options. This June we will learn the decision for the fourth and final Chesapeake Bay Trust grant we have applied for since 2024. The house tour event taking place this September is intended to help pay for any portions of the community tree triangle project not funded by grants.

At the upcoming NWCA Annual Meeting, we will have a table to present the project details and answer questions. The NWCA Board will recommend a dollar amount for the project, but it will require a membership vote. We hope as many community members as possible will attend the meeting to engage in the conversation before approving how much funding our association will provide.

The tree triangle project is what the Community Design Committee was formed to do — explore good and thoughtful design that engages our community at large. If that piques your interest, join us by subscribing to our listserv communitydesign+subscribe@NorthWoodsideCA.groups.io (subscription to main neighborhood listserv required).

When we gather as a community at the triangle this December to celebrate the 100th anniversary of North Woodside’s holiday celebrations, we’ll look forward to unveiling the next chapter in the story of our community tree triangle!

Learn more about our native garden project at the NWCA Annual Meeting on May 20, 2026


Help us raise funds to complete the full project by supporting the North Woodside House Tour on September 26, 2026. Buy tickets, volunteer, and/or sponsor! For more information, click here.

Street Tree Report (Summer 2022)

/ Anna White
Closeup of a Yellowwood tree, blooming for the first time this year, on Elkhart St.

The county arborist has inspected our street tree requests. We will receive 31 new street trees sometime between late fall of this year and spring of 2023. Thirteen of those will be shade trees. You’ll see pink splashes painted on curbs around the neighborhood where the trees will go.

Most species requested were natives. This means we will increase the number of host plants for certain native moths and butterflies, and provide a more welcoming environment for our native birds, who eat the caterpillars of those moths and butterflies, as well as the nuts, nutlets, catkins, seeds, berries, and drupes that the trees provide. The native species will be planted by Casey Trees in conjunction with the county using a grant from the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection’s Water Quality Protection Fund, administered through the Chesapeake Bay Trust. The non-natives will be funded and planted in the usual manner by the Montgomery County Department of Transportation tree division.

Most people get their first choice of species. First choices for shade trees this year included blackgums, American elm, a couple of kinds of oaks, American linden (basswood), Lacebark elm, and an American sycamore. First choices for minor trees included crabapples, sweetbay magnolias, redbuds, chokecherries, hophornbeams, a serviceberry, and one or two ornamental (Japanese) cherries.

The county will give us one ornamental native shade tree in the pocket park at Lanier Dr and 3rd Ave, five feet behind the Lanier Dr guardrail. As this is not a priority location, they will use a tree freed up by cancellations, but have tentatively scheduled a blackgum. If that isn’t available, they will pick a native with either flowers or attractive fall foliage. This plan was approved by the neighborhood Community Design committee.

Casey Trees has not yet removed the stakes and straps on the trees they planted in spring 2021 for reasons related to the pilot nature of the project that year. However they will remove them when they take the stakes and straps for trees they planted this past spring.

Finally, some of our Yellowwood street trees bloomed for this first time this year. This is a relatively rare tree and I had never seen it in its full glory. The photo above is a closeup of one on Elkhart St.

— Phyllida Paterson, Tree Committee