Students from St. Mary’s County’s Dr. James A. Forrest Career and Technology Center cut the ribbon on the Gateway Native Garden on Oct. 26, 2025, marking the completion of a year-long project aimed at enhancing local wildlife habitats and public education on native plants.
The garden, spanning two large beds adjacent to the Lexington Manor Passive Park Community Garden at 21737 S. Coral Drive, features cardinal flowers, black-eyed Susans, asters and nearly 30 other native species. These plants provide food and shelter for birds, pollinators and other wildlife while demonstrating sustainable landscaping practices. More than 400 individual plants fill the space, many grown by seventh graders at the Elms Environmental Education Center in Lexington Park.
The dedication occurred during the garden’s first annual Harvest Festival, which drew over 100 participants for activities including free native plant giveaways, arts and crafts, live music and seed swaps. The event also included the presentation of Bay-Wise Certification to both the native and adjacent vegetable gardens by University of Maryland Master Gardeners. This recognition highlights the sites’ adherence to practices that minimize runoff, conserve water and protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
“This more than a pretty garden — it is a learning garden designed to connect the public with nature,” said Molly Moore, chair of the Gateway Native Garden. “It is truly a community garden, built and maintained with the help of a dozen local organizations.”
Construction began in summer 2024 after Southern Maryland Audubon secured an Audubon in Action grant from National Audubon to fund the project. The initiative targeted an underserved area in Lexington Park, where access to green spaces and environmental education can foster broader community engagement with conservation. Students in the Natural Resources Management class, instructed by Dorothy Birch, handled much of the labor, transporting over 140 wheelbarrows of compost, mulch and bluestone to prepare the beds. A cedar arbor at the entrance, crafted as an Eagle Scout project, welcomes visitors to the site.
“The Gateway Native Garden provided an excellent opportunity for our students to put their natural resource skills to work making a tangible improvement for our ecosystem and our community,” Birch said. “These students love to get their hands dirty and make real, positive change in the world.”
Partners extended beyond the school and Audubon chapter. The St. Mary’s Community Development Corporation provided logistical support, while the Elms Environmental Education Center supplied propagated plants through its native plant nursery program, a St. Mary’s County Public Schools initiative that has distributed thousands of seedlings for local restoration efforts since 2014. St. Mary’s County Library, a key collaborator, sponsored the festival and plans ongoing free workshops on vegetable and native gardening techniques. Upcoming sessions include seed-saving demonstrations on Nov. 1, 2025, at the Lexington Park branch, focusing on collecting, cleaning and storing native seeds for home use.
The Bay-Wise Certification process, administered by University of Maryland Extension Master Gardeners, evaluates landscapes for water-efficient irrigation, integrated pest management, soil conservation and wildlife-friendly designs. For community gardens like these, certification underscores collective efforts to reduce nutrient pollution entering local streams that feed the Potomac River and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay. In St. Mary’s County, where over 90 percent of residents live near waterways, such practices help mitigate erosion and algal blooms that affect fisheries and recreation.
Lexington Manor Passive Park itself traces its roots to a 2019 master plan by St. Mary’s County Recreation and Parks, transforming a former housing development site into a 10-acre passive recreation area. The community garden portion opened in 2024, offering 20 raised beds for public vegetable growing and promoting health through exercise and fresh produce access. The addition of the native garden complements this by shifting focus to biodiversity, addressing a gap in pollinator habitats amid regional development pressures. Native plants, adapted to Southern Maryland’s sandy soils and humid climate, require less fertilizer and water than non-natives, cutting maintenance costs and supporting species like monarch butterflies, whose populations have declined 80 percent in the past two decades due to habitat loss.
Forrest Center graduate Megan Shepherd, who contributed to the planting, reflected on the transformation during the ceremony. “A year ago we started with plants that were almost too small to see, and now it is so amazing to see the garden it has become.”
The Gateway Native Garden remains open daily to the public, encouraging visits for observation or volunteer maintenance. Library-led orientations continue monthly, covering topics from soil testing to companion planting. These efforts align with broader St. Mary’s County goals under the 2023 Comprehensive Plan, which emphasizes green infrastructure to combat climate impacts like rising sea levels along the Chesapeake shoreline.
As fall colors fade into winter dormancy, the garden’s perennials will overwinter, ready to burst forth next spring. Volunteers already plan spring cleanups, ensuring the site’s role as a living classroom endures.