Appreciate nature through action at the Brookside Nature Center in Maryland
Springtime hails Brookside Gardens with all its 50 acres of geese wading in Pine Lake, gazebos shining in winter holiday lights, and greenness surging in summer dogwoods as Montgomery County, Md.’s signature botanical gardens.
In April, its fields of tulips bloom in color: rows of orange petals hiding yellow flesh and white coats covering pink buds. Drive past the Butterfly Garden, past the Rose Garden, and tucked behind the wooded scene is the Brookside Nature Center. Along with its nature trails and wildlife observation areas, the Brookside Nature Center is the premier location for educating people about the native species in the county and developing an interest in preserving the natural environment around them.
Inside all of the 20,000 plant species featured in the Brookside Gardens lies the catalyst for a flourishing garden: the pollinators. Whether they are butterflies or bees, pollinators help grow crops that make up our diet and boost the economy. Through aiding fruit and seed production, pollinators produce biodiversity and heal an ecosystem wounded by deforestation and pollution.
The Brookside Nature Center understands the importance of pollinators and works with the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association to promote honeybee populations. The organization keeps apiaries and hosts classes to train people to become future beekeepers in the nature center. In 1622, European immigrants brought honeybees to North America because of their valuable honey. Honeybee hunting was a common practice, and people started to domesticate wild honeybee colonies so they could be managed like livestock. Now, honeybees make up a significant portion of the agricultural industry.
As a non-native species, honeybees are just one bee species found in Maryland. The other 400 native bee species consist of tube-nesting bees, who lay their eggs in the hollow stems of plants rather than hives, or bees who nest in the ground. The ground-nesting bees pollinate a tiny flower called the spring beauty, which has streaks of pink going through its white petals.
After the ground nesting bee gathers the nectar and flies out of the spring beauty, it becomes covered in pink pollen.
“It looks like it is wearing little pink pants because the pollen is pink, which is the cutest thing in the world,” Suzanne Bode, the manager of the Brookside Nature Center said. Suzanne Bode, the manager of the Brookside Nature Center said. “Pink pollen is a great ecological advantage for [the spring beauty].”
(Micah Fluellen / Los Angeles Times)
At the nature center, Suzanne Bode and her colleagues are dedicated to informing people about the enormous diversity of bee species. When visitors at the Brookside Nature Center learn to distinguish bee species, they can protect these populations and understand the beauty of each species. “It amuses me when people say that they don’t like bees because they got stung by bees,” Bode said. “Usually it’s a wasp that they have been stung by, but this generic term ‘bee’ seems to cover every yellow and black striped insect.”
The Brookside Nature Center organizes research, exhibits, and programs to achieve environmental awareness. Staff and volunteers can apply to conduct research in the Wheaton Regional Park.
“We have a group right now that researches butterflies,” Bode said. “They are surveying this park and collecting an exhaustive list of the butterflies you can find in the Wheaton Regional Park.” She plans to use the top ten most common butterflies as a resource in the nature center for casual visitors.
One of Suzanne’s favorite exhibits in the Brookside Nature Center is the Six Legged Sanctuary, which contains materials from pinecones, leaves, rocks, and chicken wire for insects to paper tubes for the ground-nesting bees and hollow stem grasses for the tube nesting bees. For its upcoming projects, the nature center will clear out one of the gardens to transform it into an area where people can identify native plants, including information such as the pollinators for each plant.
“It’s basically a teaching garden, and it has two areas that are elevated on walkways that you can look down into,” Bode said.
As well as leading environmental education, the Brookside Nature Center offers the Weed Warrior Program, which allows people to get involved in tackling environmental problems. The program trains volunteers to identify non-native invasive species called NNIs that affect native plant growth. It tells them the whats, hows, and whens of removing the weeds and what to do after removing them. This knowledge is crucial because removing weeds requires a meticulous process and timing. “If you try to pull these plants in June or the summertime, you can spread more seeds all over the place,” Bode says.
To teach people about conserving 220 acres of nature in the Wheaton Regional Park, Bode and her colleagues create art out of nature. The gorgeous bumblebee forest, ruby-throated hummingbird, and soldier beetle metal sculptures in the nature center garden were designed by a welder. One of the staff is hosting a class where people collect vines like wisteria and oriental bittersweet and turn them into baskets. Through learning about invasive species while making sustainable products, people can take action toward an eco-friendly lifestyle. They also take clothing that people no longer wear and teach people how to weave it into rugs and handbags.
“There is a real commitment here in this county to save these species, especially since we live in a densely populated area with little space for the species to grow in,” Bode said.
One of Bode’s memories at the nature center highlights the effect of immersing people in nature. After reading a story about the bluebirds for a nature story time event to children and parents, Bode led them on a nature walk to the meadow to see the bluebird nesting boxes. People pointed out a bald-faced hornet nest resting on top of the tree, and using their binoculars, they saw the thin layers of its outer shell and how the hornets chewed on wood fibers and weaved the nest with their saliva to build this marveling architecture. Bode began seeing how the people’s reactions were filled with admiration as opposed to their initial feelings that insects were a nuisance.
“Anytime we talk about insects, people have negative reactions,” Bode said. “But when you look at the nest with a certain set of eyes and look past a fear of hornets, you find a real appreciation for it.”
This change in such a short amount of time through a children’s story time about bluebirds and a hornet nest displays how the nature center establishes an emotional connection between people and their environment. The fact that these little insects together can create a work of art brings people to think about insects in a positive attitude.
“If we can bring people that were an hour ago saying, ‘Ew spiders’ to ‘Wow, that’s really beautiful’ or ‘Look at that nest, isn’t that amazing — how could they do that, how could they build that?’, then we have succeeded,” Bode said.
When bringing up the climate crisis, from habitat loss to biodiversity loss, it is clear that the ecosystem is at stake. Yet this global issue raises a larger question: the public knows about the wildfires and heatwaves in a distant state, but do they know about the disappearing azaleas and native bees in the heart of their front yards and community entrances? Do they realize the small-scale changes that play a role in their daily life through their evening walks and morning runs? “If you don’t care about something, you’re not gonna protect it,” Bode says. “You don’t care about it, you don’t value it, and you don’t protect it.”
The local events and efforts in the Brookside Nature Center flourish native species and encourage people to become environmental experts and practice conservation. Each participant from the educational programs and each thriving species in the park helps the county work together towards a healthier future. “People take care of things that they have an emotional connection to, whether it is their child or their pet,” Bode says. “Or a field of native plants that have insects hovering over them, and bluebirds swooping down and eating those insects and feeding it to their young…”
