Alliance Websites, Resources, Videos, Blogs, & More

The Alliance has many different resources and educational tools that can help keep you occupied and teach you new things during this time spent at home. Below, we are going to share our different tools for you to dig into.

Websites

• Chesapeake Network – The Network is a place for sharing resources, webinars, online events, jobs, and more. 
• The Native Plant Center – The Native Plant Center tells you what native plants are right for your property based on your soil texture, soil moisture, sun exposure, etc.
• Reduce Your Stormwater – The Reduce Your Stormwater website houses information about how you can reduce the amount of polluted runoff that leaves your property.
• Online Yard Design Tool – The Online Yard Design Tool is designed to help property owners in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed develop a plan to install a rain garden or conservation landscape in their yards.
• Forests for the Bay – The Forests for the Bay website is full of tools and resources for learning how to manage your forest.
• Chesapeake Tree Canopy Network – The Network connects you with resources, stories, and best practices to understand, expand, and maintain your canopy.
• Chesapeake Riparian Forest Buffer Network – Learn about forest buffer programs, resources, and stories in the Chesapeake, and find out why forest buffers are so critical.
• Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative – The CMC is a group of leading organizations that provide technical, programmatic, and outreach support in order to integrate volunteer-based water quality monitoring data into the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership. The CMC website offers many tools and resources for water quality monitoring.
• Chesapeake Data Explorer – The Data Explorer is a tool for storing and sharing data collected by a network of water quality and benthic macroinvertebrate monitors working with the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative.
• Chesapeake Bay Program – The Chesapeake Bay Program website offers a ton of information about the Chesapeake Bay, its ecosystem, and wildlife. 

Resources

• RiverWise Communities Manual
• Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping
• Glossary of Terms

Videos

• What is Stormwater?
• Yard Makeover: Installing A Rain Garden
• Yard Makeover: Installing A Pollinator Garden
• How to Complete A Stormwater Assessment
• Binford Middle School Project
• Turkey Hill Clean Water Partnership Beginnings
• Turkey Hill Clean Water Partnership: 2019 Progress
• Tree Talks:
  • How to Plant A Tree
  • What’s That Conifer?
  • Live Staking
  • Gray Dogwood
  • Boxelder
  • Poison Ivy
  • Black Raspberry
  • Pawpaw
  • Blackgum
  • Snags
  • Witch Hazel
  • Christmas Fern
  • White Cedar
  • Mountain Laurel
  • Atlantic White Cedar
  • A Hobbyist’s Guide to Maple Sugaring

Webinar Recordings

• The Business of the Watershed
• Urban Ecosystems Restoration: Make Every Squarefoot Count
• Clean Water: Chesapeake Bay Program and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
• Abundant Life: Chesapeake Bay Program and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
• Climate Change: Chesapeake Bay Program and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
• Engaged Communities: Chesapeake Bay Program and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
• Conserved Lands: Chesapeake Bay Program and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
• Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative Introduction

Blogs

Gardening:

• Rain Gardens: A greener approach to landscaping 
• Growing Native Gardens & Why They Matter 
• Amazing Edible Plants
• 5 Amazing Plants Blooming in May
• Streamside Forest Buffers are Important for Water and Wildlife
• Small woodlots are a big deal to the Chesapeake’s restoration
• Don’t Let Invasive Plants “Return From the Dead”!
• 5 Common Edible Summertime Berries in the Chesapeake
• Deck the Halls With Native Holly
• Dangerous Plants of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
• Fall in Love with these Native Plants this Valentine’s Day

Forestry:

• Keeping the Mighty Oaks
• Species Spotlight: Table Mountain Pine
• Native Shrubs: the workhorses of our streamside forests
• The Bewitching Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)
• Mistletoe: A Merry Parasite
• Tree-of-Heaven, a Devilish Invader
• The Rubrum Cunundrum
• 10 Chesapeake-Native Trees and Shrubs to plant this Spring
• March, the Sweetest Time of the Year!
• American Chestnut: Ghosts of Our Eastern Forests
• Resurrection of the American Chestnut
• What’s That Conifer? Part 1
• What’s That Conifer? (Part 2 of 2)
• The Macabre Mushroom
• The FIDS are Alright?
• Agroforestry and Native Understory Crops

Projects:

• Rainwater Harvesting System Doubles as a Sculpture in our Virginia Project
• A Native Plant Meditation Garden at Faith Community Baptist Church
• An Act of Faith on the Anacostia River
• Church and Partners Complete Project for Cleaner Water, Less Flooding At Historical Cemetery
• Announcing A New Resilient Marsh & Living Shoreline Project in Maryland!
• Providing Shade for Richmond
• Project Clean Stream Update

Wildlife:

• Species Spotlight: Wild Turkey
• Decomposers: The Creepy Crawly Critters of our Chesapeake Forests
• The Complicated Relationship Between Acorns and Animals
• The Rugged Ruffed Grouse: Heartbeat of our Winter Forests
• Trout in the Classroom
• Owl Pellets Bring Skeletons Into Schools
• Oysters in Your Backyard
• Otherworldly Creatures: you have to see it to believe it!
• A Visit From the Reaper
• Big Romantic Gestures from the Little American Woodcock
• Celebrating the Purple Martin, the Town of La Plata, and Bird City Maryland!

Environmental Stewardship:

• 10 Ways You Can Prevent the Spread of Invasive Species
• Four Simple Ways to Greenify your Office in 2020
• Six Alternatives to Plastic Straws
• A Reading List of Books about the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
• Live Staking: A Trusty Technique for Planting Trees and Shrubs on the Cheap
• Resolve to Lose a Little Lawn in 2020
• Don’t Forget Where You Came From: the case for a grassroots surge in celebrating the 50th Earth Day

Other:

• Wintergreen Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips
• The Unique History of Our 121-Year Old Headquarters Building in Annapolis
• Goblin’s Gold
• From the Grave: Dead Man’s Fingers
• Restoration Project Spotlight: Creating Spotted Turtle Habitat in Southern Maryland
• Five Oyster Recipes to Try This Fall
• Interview with Patrick Hudson From True Chesapeake Oyster Co.
• Taking Nature Black!
• 10 Ways to Get More Greens During Quarantine

Year of the Woman:

• An Interview with Kristin Reilly
• Influential Women: Harriet Tubman

Bay Journal Articles

• Stormwater Symbiosis: A Look at the Bloomingdale Rebate Program as a Successful Example of Public-Private-Civil Society Partnership
• Five Reasons to Know the Health of Your Local Stream
• The Inn at Horn Point and Its Passionate Innkeeper
• Correctional Conservation Collaborative Trains New Generation of Riparian Forest Buffer Professionals
• Hindsight is 2020: To Make Sure The Next 10 Years Count, Include Everyone