The city’s RainScapes Rebates program will reopen to applications on Friday, July 1. The program offers single-family homeowners and nonprofits, including religious institutions, private schools and homeowners associations, up to $2,500 in rebates for landscaping that is designed to reduce flooding, decrease pollution in local streams, and support wildlife.
The program offers rebates for installing rain barrels, planting conservation landscapes and native trees, removing pavement, and replacing impermeable driveways, patios, and sidewalks with permeable pavers. To learn more, visit www.rockvillemd.gov/rainscapes or contact [email protected].
A Place for Pollinators
RainScapes Rebates for conservation landscaping can help fill your garden with native plants. Native plants are adapted to local conditions and, if planted in the right place, need less water and support butterflies, birds, bees and other pollinators.
Gardeners, working with nature, can provide a place for pollinators that includes food, shelter, water and a place to raise a family. Pollinator gardens with a variety of trees and plants of different colors, shapes and heights, and that flower throughout the growing season, can provide the nectar and pollen that pollinators need, especially during hot summer months. Consider adding a water source such as a dish, birdbath, or small pond with a fountain or bubbler. The moving water will attract birds while deterring mosquitoes.
Find more tips for creating gardens to support pollinators at extension.umd.edu/resource/pollinator-gardens.
Go Wild and Get Certified
Is your yard providing good cover and a home for wildlife? Homeowners, businesses, schools, universities, places of worship, parks, civic and community organizations, and others that create wildlife-friendly landscapes can earn National Wildlife Federation certification.
Certified wildlife habitats must provide food, water, cover and places for wildlife to raise young. These certified habitats help to create corridors for wildlife to thrive throughout the community. Like RainScapes Rebates, the program encourages gardening in an environmentally friendly way, planting native species of plants and replacing lawns with trees, shrubs and other plants. To find resources and learn more about becoming certified, visit www.rockvillemd.gov/wildlifehabitat.