In Your BackyardActivities | Get Kids Outside | In Your Home | In Your Yard | In Your Community | Volunteer | Join CBF | Discovery Trips | Take A Pledge |Participate in Events  Every single person who lives in your neighborhood has a profound impact on the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Help improve water quality in your backyard by making smart decisions in your home and by using Bay-friendly landscaping techniques. Smart landscaping choices can help reduce the Bay's biggest pollutants (sediments and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus) and restore natural filters.
Bay-friendly landscaping increases native plant diversity; provides food, cover, and nesting areas for wildlife; and reduces the stormwater runoff (equally important in city and suburban gardens) that dumps sediment and pollutants in the Bay and its rivers and streams. You can also involve and educate your community by using Bay-friendly landscaping on community property near your home.
 If you live on the water, Build a Living Shoreline to prevent erosion, allow wildlife access, and beautify your waterfront.
Read our Living Shorelines brochure. (pdf)
In your landscaping, use native grasses or other plants that don’t require watering or fertilizing. Reduce or eliminate use of chemical herbicides and pesticides. Learn to live with a dandelion or two. Lawn fertilizers and chemicals are a big source of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution and toxic runoff. Learn more about Bay-friendly landscaping. Avoid pouring toxic substances down storm drains. Don’t dump hazardous materials like solvents, paints, and preservatives. They go directly into streams and waterways to pollute the Bay. Use your county’s hazardous waste collection program instead. Plant a tree. Besides providing oxygen to the atmosphere, trees hold soil in place with their roots, preventing erosion that runs into the Bay. They soak up fertilizers and other chemicals before they seep into waterways. And by shading your home in summer, they even reduce energy costs. Learn more about tree planting. Learn more about creating bay friendly backyards:
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