Schedule of Summer/Fall Events
2026 Native Garden Contest Applications Open
Date: Monday, June 8 – July 7 (see below for more information)
GTA Prop-Making Event for Fourth of July parade
Fourth of July Parade
We need your help to create new props for GTA’s entry into Towson’s Fourth of July Parade! We will be creating fish and frogs from recycled materials, along with painting a new parade banner for our theme: ❤️Your Neighborhood Stream
Date: Saturday, June 13
Time: 11am-2pm
Location: Central Presbyterian Church Outdoor Pavilion, 7308 York Road, Towson, MD 21204
Fourth of July parade: Love Your Neighborhood Stream
We need at least 20 marchers for GTA’s parade entry this year. We have a striking new “stream” design and of course our puppets made from recycled materials!
Please sign up: https:://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090949A4AB2C7-63909809-2026#/
We encourage marchers or wear green or order a GTA T-shirt (see below)
Event details:
Date: Saturday, July 4
Time: TBA
Summer Movie Night
Watch “The Extraordinary Caterpillar”, a film by Homegrown National Park! Bring your families to enjoy pizza and a nature craft!
Event details:
Date: Saturday, July 25
Location: Towson Presbyterian Church, 400 W Chesapeake Ave, Towson, MD 21204
Time: 6pm
Location: Towson Presbyterian Church, 400 W Chesapeake Ave, Towson, MD 21204
Stream Clean-ups
This year GTA coordinated eleven stream clean-ups in the Towson area including eight in the Herring Run watershed (Glendale, Ridgeleigh, Ashlar Hills, Loch Raven Library ravine, Fellowship Forest, Radebaugh Park, Knollwood/Wiltondale, Overlook Park) and three in the Jones Falls watershed (Lutherville Light Rail, Thornleigh, Southland Hills). A total of 223 volunteers participated including 130 Towson University students, 84 community adults, 8 children and our GTA facilitator, Carol Newill. We collected 161 bags of trash, 16 bags of recycling and 8 bags of invasive weeds. Other items found include shopping carts, a paintball gun, car parts, metal poles, a lawnmower, a child chair, parachute cord, a bike, a scooter, a construction barrier and electronics.
We are grateful to those who helped dispose of what was collected. Councilperson Mike Ertel and his staff member Shawn transported some to the Cockeysville Central Acceptance facility. The Radebaugh family allowed use of the dumpsters for the Radebaugh park and Knollwood/Wiltondale clean-up teams. St. Andrew’s Church also allowed use of their dumpsters for the Ashland Hills clean-up. Some site leaders took bags home for routine pick-up. Many thanks to the site leaders: Christine Accardo, Jamie Fenton, Allen Hicks, Adreon Hubbard, Katie Knott, Bernie Krol, Lyz Levine, Barbara Lewis, Jason Mclean, Beth Miller, Brough Schamp, Courtney Shannon, and Mike Stopford.
Sewer Update
In May, the County Council approved the 2026 Basic Services Maps. After years of advocacy by GTA and others to correct sanitary sewer deficiencies in the Jones Falls Sewershed, Councilman Patoka introduced an amendment that marked the Lake Roland area below the lake as deficient. However, the administration sent testimony indicating they would not support this amendment. We have responded to the administration’s lettercorrecting information they provided and asking the County Council to improve their oversight role by scheduling a public hearing on the renegotiation of the Sanitary Sewer Consent decree and asking to see the model being used to determine if there is adequate capacity to add new development to the sewershed.
URBAN AND COMMUNITY TREE PLANTING
Community Tree Planting
Blue Water Baltimore will be reaching out to tree stewards soon to kick-off the 2026 tree planting program in our neighborhoods. If you are interested in learning about becoming a tree steward, please contact Beth Miller at bethbonemiller@gmail.com
Update on Trees in Downtown Towson
In May, GTA members met with representatives from the Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability (DEPS) to review the proposed sites for a tree planting that will occur in downtown Towson next fall. This spring 42 trees were planted because of the mature tree replacement policy that GTA proposed and advocated for in the 2016 Downtown Towson District (DTD) zoning overlay legislation introduced by County Councilman David Marks.
This policy requires developers to replace trees over 10 inches in diameter that are removed as part of a new development in the DTD. They must replace them “inch-for-inch.” For example, if a 10-inch diameter tree is removed, it will be replaced with four 2.5″ trees. The new building at the corner of Allegheny and Baltimore Ave will result in about 101 new trees to be planted in downtown Towson. We worked with the developer to make sure they surveyed the existing trees and we worked with the administration to determine how the legislation would be implemented.
All the new trees are native canopy trees including Black Gum, Fruitless Sweet Gum, Jefferson Elm, Basswood, Bald Cypress and others.
2026 Native Garden Contest – Our Sixth Year!
The workgroup made up of 12 GTA members met recently to set the schedule for this year’s contest. People can enter their gardens starting on June 8, and the contest will close for entries at midnight on July 7 – this allows people away for the long July 4th weekend time to enter their yards. After we choose the finalists, we feature their gardens on our website and ask people to vote for their favorite garden in each category. The purpose of the online vote is to allow folks to see how beautiful native gardens can be, and how they support the ecosystem. Shari Wilson, creator of Nuts for Natives and contest sponsor, will highlight previous winner and GTA member Roland Oehme’s yard on her website soon. Winners will be announced on August 11. See the website http://nativegardencontest.com/ for more information and email nativegardencontest@gmail.com with questions. See below for our full flyer.
2026 Maryland General Assembly Wrap-up
GTA’s Legislative Affairs Workgroup continued to do important advocacy work during this year’s General Assembly session. We thank all our members who helped write testimony and reached out to their Senators and Delegates to request support for bills. Below is a summary of how the bills we followed fared in the 2026 session. For those that didn’t pass, we’ll be watching and providing support if they get introduced in 2027!
In addition to the bills below, we made many calls to legislators to preserve the funding for the Maryland Native Plants Program, a program we helped to create with legislation in 2023. We were successful and the program will continue to educate the public on the many benefits of native plants!
Bills that have passed and have become law:
- HB35/SB266 – Regulation of Tree of Heaven and Invasive Trees: This bill, sponsored by Del. Foley and Sen. Brooks, enables counties and municipalities to regulate the sale, planting and control of tree of heaven and other trees on Maryland’s Prohibited Invasive Plant List. It also enables counties and municipalities to create bounty or native tree replacement programs. We hope that Maryland counties and municipalities will take advantage of the new language to speed the passage of their own regulations against invasive trees.
- HB701/SB523 – Protection of Vernal Pools: Vernal pools are seasonal pools of water that provide habitat for distinctive plants and animals. Unlike other wetland ecosystems, vernal pools are not a federally protected category. During the session the bill was pared down to only identify vernal pools, add them to a list, and train the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to continue identifying vernal pools in the future. While this will not afford vernal pools the full protections applied to other wetlands, it will begin collecting valuable data and normalizing the recognition of these unique habitats. We hope that protections will be applied in a future session.
- HB1267 – Protecting Patuxent Research Refuge and Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC): This bill uses county zoning and restrictions on development to preserve the natural areas of the Patuxent Research Refuge and BARC in the event that the federal government decides to sell off either of these properties. While both sites are still at risk from irresponsible federal management, this bill has added one new layer of protection against permanent destruction by developers.
Bills That did Not Pass (but may be back in 2027):
- HB217/SB229 – Maryland Native Plant Month: This would have made May “Maryland Native Plant Month,” establishing a consistent way to raise awareness about native plants and schedule promotional programming. Unfortunately, other commemorative months took precedence in the legislative agenda, and this bill did not pass through committee in either chamber.
- HB331/SB342 – “The Bottle Bill”: This bill would have introduced a bottle deposit program for most beverage containers sold in Maryland. Unfortunately, there was industry push-back and the bill did not pass out of committee in either chamber. We hope that awareness of the environmental damage of plastic pollution in waterways will continue to increase, providing more pressure to pass legislation establishing this program next year.
Appeal for Funds
We are a totally volunteer organization. We do not charge dues, and until recently, members of the Executive Committee have paid for most expenses for our projects. We’d appreciate donations of any size from our members. Please Venmo @AllisonSchulze
Order your Green Towson Alliance T-Shirt in time for the 4th of July Parade!
$16.25 + shipping
