A Penny For Your Thoughts

We’ve only had three snowstorms this month, none of them like the ones that hit Atlanta and Boston, but I’m ready for spring! In fact, springtime, and its opportunities for planting gardens and addressing home landscaping, is the subject of my February television show, Mason Matters!, on Fairfax County Channel 16. The half hour program features David Bulova, who serves on the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District Board, and Sandy Flowers, a volunteer Master Gardener at Green Spring Gardens Park in the Lincolnia area of Mason District.

As we begin our preparations for springtime gardening, we need to consider how those activities may affect our environment. Emerald green lawns, multi-colored floral beds, and bountiful harvests are wonderful, but over-fertilizing lawns, flower beds or garden plots also may pose a threat to the soil and water resources throughout our communities. In the television interview, Master Gardener Sandy Flowers discusses native vs. non-native vegetation and invasives, such as English Ivy, in the home garden. She also outlines the Eco-Savvy Gardening program at Green Spring. An Eco-Savvy Symposium will be held there on Saturday, February 26, from 8:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Call 703/642-5173 for information or to register, or visit their Web site at www.greenspring.org.

David Bulova describes how nutrients from fertilizer run-off can cause algal “blooms” in the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay, cutting off light and oxygen to fish, crabs, and other bay-dwelling resources. The Commonwealth of Virginia is under a court order to clean up the Bay by 2010, and remove the Bay from the nation’s impaired waters list. Mr. Bulova notes that springtime fertilizing should be avoided; if you have to fertilize, one application in the fall yields much better results. Mason Matters! is aired on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., and Fridays and Sundays at 6:30 p.m.

In Richmond on Wednesday, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation presented the 2004 Conservationist of the Year Award to former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles. The former governor had been instrumental in developing the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement in 1987, and last year chaired the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Blue Ribbon Finance Panel which, in October, issued major recommendations for innovative solutions for funding the multi-billion dollar Bay clean-up. The Blue Ribbon Panel’s final report and supporting materials are available on-line at www.chesapeakebay.net.

If you need a little more springtime, visit the current Art in the Mason District Governmental Center exhibit of Chinese brush painting by local artist Darlene Kaplan. Sixteen bright and delightful watercolors, featuring traditional themes of flowers, fish, birds, and evergreens, may be viewed in my office at 6507 Columbia Pike in Annandale during regular business hours, 8:30 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Supervisor Penny Gross may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov

Supervisor Penny Gross may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov