Hundreds of Catholics in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland are praying with their hands this spring by growing native plants in their home gardens. While beautifying their yards, they’re also responding to Pope Francis’ instruction to listen to the cry of the Earth, by helping to cleanse local waterways and provide a habitat for wildlife.
These home gardeners are part of the National Wildlife Foundation’s Sacred Grounds program, which educates faith communities about the importance of native plants and then encourages putting that learning into practice through plantings on church properties and plant-giveaways to households.
“The desire to do kind acts for the planet is already there and so it is about giving people the opportunity to engage, even if with small gestures,” said Father Roberto J. Cortés-Campos, pastor of St. Mark’s Parish in Hyattsville. About 300 families took home native plants over the May 21st weekend.
Three other parishes hosted much smaller native plant giveaways in May: St. Camillus in Silver Spring, St. Michael the Archangel in Silver Spring and St. Rose of Lima in Gaithersburg. Most parishioners picked up coral bells, golden ragwort, butterfly milkweed or black-eyed Susans, Maryland’s state flower.
"You can help people live their environmental ethics,” the program’s founder, Naomi Edelson, explained. "It becomes a fun project for congregations to engage their members. Tell them the problem and what we can do."
Educating about the problem begins with a webinar hosted by participating faith communities. Presenters explain that native plants are the foundation for healthy ecosystems and wildlife. The plants shelter and nourish butterflies, insects, birds and other animals. They significantly reduce stormwater runoff, minimizing pollutants carried from roads and parking lots into local streams and, in the Washington, D.C., area, eventually into the Chesapeake Bay.
It was an understanding of the harms from stormwater that motivated Darrell Smith to engage St. Michael’s parish in the Sacred Grounds program, starting last year. “What really got me was realizing that any trash or pollutants (oil, antifreeze, etc. from parked cars) left in our parking lot is literally washed into Sligo Creek. Sometimes caring for creation seems like such a large task, but better managing runoff from our parish property seems pretty manageable.”
The National Wildlife Federation awarded the parish a grant to install a native plant garden. Smith’s son, Conrad, designed and installed the garden last fall for his Eagle Scout project, on an otherwise vacant strip of land between the parish center parking lot and another church. The garden includes a swale to capture rain water before it runs across the parking lot and into a storm drain that flows directly into Sligo Creek.
St. Mark’s started its landscaping projects a few years earlier, with two rain gardens that the parish expects to revamp with native plants to keep the ecosystem healthy, according to Father Cortés-Campos. The property also has about 20 native trees, which he says provide beautiful spring blossoms.
“Our Catholic tradition invites us to work for the common good and taking care of environmental issues falls into this category,” the pastor said. “We do have to be custodians of our common home.”
