April 2026: The Volunteers Behind the Faust Garden

April 2026

By Kat Resanovich, Volunteer Coordinator & Educator

This time of year, one of the most exciting sights in the woods is spring wildflowers. This time of year, the forest floor comes alive with new blooms every week. One of the best places on the preserve to see these blooms is, of course, the Faust Wildflower Garden. This beautiful spot is a great place to visit, not just in the spring but year-round. A lot of work goes into maintaining and protecting this special place, and a lot of that is done by our amazing Stewardship Volunteers.    

The namesake of the garden, Mildred Faust, was an accomplished botanist and professor in Central New York. Faust not only contributed greatly to the fields of botany and biology, but was instrumental in the creation of Baltimore Woods 60 years ago. Faust was a strong advocate for land preservation and the protection of rare and native species. Mildred Faust spent a lot of time studying plants, hiking, and protecting the habitats at Baltimore Woods. In 1985, the Faust Wildflower Garden was created in recognition of all of Mildred Faust’s contributions to Botany and environmental stewardship. The garden was also created because, as Mildred got older, it became harder for her to make it down the steep trails into the Valley to see the wildflowers. So, current director John Weeks thought it would be fitting to create a flatter, more accessible trail so everyone could see the beauty of wildflowers. That focus on accessibility and bringing nature to everyone has continued to be a part of the Faust garden to this day. Our A-Team volunteers regularly maintain the trail to ensure that people of all abilities can get to the garden to enjoy the wildflowers. 

 

For a long time, the Faust Garden was maintained largely by volunteer caretaker, Audrey Loewer. Audrey was a local Sunday school teacher who came to Baltimore Woods one day to film a video for one of her classes. She discovered how beautiful the preserve was and continued to come back, eventually becoming an incredibly active volunteer. Audrey tended to the Faust Garden for many years and started weekly wildflower walks in the Spring to share the beauty of the spring blooms and educate the public about them. Audrey said that getting to share interesting facts about the flowers with visitors was one of her favorite things about the Spring. Even when she wasn’t leading a wildflower walk, Audrey taught visitors about the wildflowers through displays at the trailhead kiosks. For years, Audrey made seasonal exhibits at the kiosks, and the spring ones always focused on wildflowers. Audrey would bring samples of the wildflowers and display them in old film canisters so that visitors could see what was in bloom. Although Audrey isn’t able to come to Baltimore Woods very much anymore, she regularly writes the staff letters sharing her memories from Baltimore Woods and shares what she’s seeing in her garden.

 

 

After Audrey, the Faust garden has been taken care of by many volunteers, largely Rose Burdick, who leads our weekly spring wildflower walks and creates the kiosk displays every month. You can find Rose out in the garden almost every week, and even more during the Spring. Rose and many other A-Team volunteers, including Ken Burdick, John Gilrein, Sue Roche, and so many more, work to keep the garden beautiful through so much work, including weeding, removing invasives, native seeding, trail maintenance, and more. This time of year, Rose is out every week adding signs when new blooms pop up, so that visitors can learn the flowers. Even volunteers outside of the A-Team have spent a lot of time working at the Faust Garden, like front desk volunteer Linda Garner and her husband Steve. One of the largest projects for the volunteers has been removing goutweed, an invasive groundcover plant that takes over the forest floor. Goutweed can outcompete our native blooms, and volunteers have spent a lot of time removing it to make room for our native flowers.

 

The Faust Garden is one of the most special and unique areas on our preserve, and we are so thankful to all of the volunteers who have helped maintain it over the years. Rose said that spending time in the Faust Garden gives you “the feeling that you have left a hectic world behind and are entering a peaceful place.” Although this is one of the busiest times of year at Baltimore Woods, our staff and volunteers always make it a priority to get out to the Faust Garden to explore the spring blooms and reconnect with nature. So, thank you to all of the volunteers who have spent time and put in a lot of work to steward this wonderful garden for all to enjoy.

Rose Burdick has one final wildflower walk on Saturday, 5/9, from 1:00-2:00. Learn more and register for this free program on our public program calendar: https://baltimorewoods.org/event/wildflower-walk-5-9/