Towson To Host Dedication Ceremony For Gardens

From NeighborSpace:In late January, NeighborSpace received a call about whether we might be interested in a donation of a large collection of native plants. The plants, it turns out, had been planted and nurtured by Joanna Hastings- Kiessling, a local master naturalist and master gardener who had passed away unexpectedly. Her family wanted to ensure that they would continue to be cultivated, that they would be appreciated, and that Joanna's legacy would be honored in the process. We answered with a quick and resounding "YES!" We are grateful to Wendy Jacobs, a cofounder of the Green Towson Alliance, and to Joanna's family for thinking of us and for the account of Joanna's life that we reprint here.

Joanna Hastings-Kiessling was born in Baltimore, Maryland and developed a deep love for our rolling Piedmont countryside. She traveled extensively both nationally and internationally for her jobs with Alcatel- Lucent and Saft America, where she marketed aerospace and defense equipment and solar batteries, respectively. Joanna returned to Catonsville in 2001 for family reasons. Joanna decided to take some time off while daughter Faith completed her education at UMBC, and began exploring her interests and deep connection to Nature. In 2012, she completed the Master Naturalist program at Irvine Science Center. She became an ardent follower of University of Delaware ecologist/entomologist Doug Tallamy. Tallamy’s emphasis on native plants as the fundamental underpinning of healthy ecosystems and our
own survival on this planet led Joanna to also complete a Master Gardener certification at Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore City in 2013. At Cylburn she learned technical skills and developed connections with expert horticulturalists. In 2015, Joanna founded a non-profit venture called “biodivers-it”. She gathered and purchased thousands of seeds and seedling plants, which she grew into sturdy yearlings and donated to school and community projects. The purpose was to encourage the re-greening of our area with native plants in order to bring back healthy ecosystems and help heal the planet. Ridgely and Deep Creek Middle Schools were major recipients of Joanna’s generosity. Angela Rountree was a teacher there and coordinated with Joanna the creation of native gardens by students at both schools, along with a 10-box bluebird trail at Ridgeley. Many hundreds of shrubs, flowering plants and trees were donated by Joanna to fund the project, along with thousands of seeds used for fund raising. At the time of her death, Joanna was exploring ways to broaden her connections and donations to other County schools.

Another thrust of Biodivers-it was to support community groups in the creation of natural open spaces. Joanna had her own beloved project, a trail spur that connected a residential part of Owings Mills with the Soldier’s Delight Natural Environmental Area and provided foot access to the park for hundreds of Owings Mills residents. She worked diligently for five years to replace invasives with native plants on a half-mile access spur and to make it feel safe and appealing, especially for women walkers. Usage of the spur increased
exponentially as Joanna’s restoration progressed. Joanna would elicit casual walkers of all ages to help with this all-volunteer effort, educating them as they worked together. Joanna was always there to consult and donate the hard-to-get native plants. And she loved explaining how they contributed to the well-being of wildlife and humans.”

Joanna’s plants were used in restoration of backyard buffers in Towson and the restoration of eight acres of the Pickersgill Retirement Community campus, also in Towson. Besides her general passion for native plants,
Joanna had a deep affection for the most aggressive ones (she called them “Survivors”) that would deliver beauty and benefit wildlife under the most difficult growing conditions. She was quite an expert in these species, some rarely for sale in nurseries, and made sure to raise them in great quantities for donations. NeighborSpace board members and staff, along with many volunteers, harvested plants for the garden from a site owned by Ms. Hastings-Kiessling in Owings Mills over the spring and summer. The native plant material isa welcome addition to a park where invasive species had a firm foothold until grubbing and clearing commenced in 2013.

The park opening in 2017 coincided with the launching of the Donald C. Outen Urban Tree Society, a reaction to the fact that while GIS maps show that the County has exceeded its goal of having 40 percent tree coverage inside the URDL, our experience shows that many of those trees are unhealthy. Supporters from around the county sponsored health trees in the park when it was opened in 2017 providing funding to help us take care of them over the long term. Those trees will be officially tagged on Sunday, with each tag bearing an inscription personal to its donor along with a QR code, providing information about the particular genus and species. Don Outen, the forest sustainability expert for whom the Tree Society is named, will be on hand to say a few words about the importance of maintaining the tree canopy in our very urban, first-tier suburbs. NeighborSpace is not alone when it comes to efforts to improve the livability of communities inside the county’s Urban Rural Demarcation Line and we want to celebrate the achievements of individuals and groups who are passionate about things that complement our mission. We do this through the award of “Green Jackets” to our comrades in arms.

Councilman David Marks has been a true supporter of open space in his district and has found many ways to leverage diverse funding streams and harness private and non-profit muscle to get a number of new public open space projects built during his tenure. Adelaide Bentley Park, the location of Sunday’s event, is one of them. The Councilman was also instrumental in making Radebaugh Park happen. A groundbreaking for that
project happened just a few weeks ago. Also instrumental in Radebaugh Park’s creation was the Green Towson Alliance. NeighborSpace will recognize its leader, Dr. Carol Newill, with a green jacket at Sunday’s event at Adelaide Bentley Park. The event will be held from 3 to 5 PM on the grounds of Adelaide Bentley Park. Free parking is available on the Stanley Black and Decker lot adjacent to the park. More information is available on the event registration page at: https://bit.ly/ourdedicationday.

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