Week of August 9, 2026 – August 15, 2026
by David DuBois, Director of Stewardship
What can you do to help heal the natural world around you in 6 months? As it turns out a whole lot!
Nearly 6 months ago we launched a new volunteer opportunity dubbed TREES Crew to focus on restoration and stewardship. Ecological restoration and environmental stewardship are an important part of our mission here at Baltimore Woods, but it is easy to let it get lost within the plethora of maintenance and programmatic needs that we balance every day on the stewardship team. We hoped that the nitty gritty of taking a space and helping it transform from an invasive patch to a functioning native habitat would be an opportunity that would appeal to a group of people that might not be as interested in other opportunities we have here at Baltimore Woods, and on a blisteringly cold day in February we started down that path.
6 Months later and that group has cleared out honeysuckle, buckthorn, privet, and other invasives, and replaced them with native plants which create the foundation of functioning habitat. Walking around these places this week I found grasses seeded in March growing strong in the summer heat, dogwoods planted in May getting taller, and fields opened up because of the hard work that these volunteers have put in. Over the 6 months of TREES crew the spaces we have done work in have been transformed and put on a path of building and sustaining the wildlife and experiences that make Baltimore Woods so special.
The most rewarding part of restoration, however, is watching successes build over time. 6 months is not a lot of time for trees to grow, but the places where TREES crew has positively impacted will continue to heal for years into the future because of the work that has already been put in.
If you would like to be part of the next 6 months of restoration volunteerism at Baltimore Woods, come out to TREES crew on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month. The next workday will be Saturday August 15th.