CBLP Celebrates 10 Years!
This fall marks the 10th anniversary of the Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional (CBLP) program! Since its first training in 2016, CBLP has grown into a network of more than 1,900 certified professionals working to advance sustainable landscaping and protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed. We’re celebrating a decade of learning, collaboration, and impact — and looking ahead to what’s next!
Join the celebration by entering our BMP Date Photo Contest, attending a special Today’s Menu anniversary webinar where we’ll look back at CBLP’s growth and announce the contest winner, or joining us in person on December 5 at Black Ankle Vineyards in Mt. Airy, MD, for an afternoon of connection and celebration. Registration for the winery event is free, and we encourage you to RSVP! A special thank-you to Native Creations Landscape Services, PA, for sponsoring our in-person celebration and helping make this milestone event possible.
CCLC 2025 Annual Report
Want to learn more about the Chesapeake Conservation Landscaping Council’s impact? Our Annual Report highlights the people, partnerships, and programs that shaped the past year. Explore our accomplishments, financial stewardship, and vision for the future as we continue to grow a network of professionals creating healthier, more resilient landscapes across the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
CCLC Establishes the Scotty Scholars Fund
Scotty Guinn Dilworth (1965-2022), was a certified CBLP and small business owner of SG Designs, an award winning and innovative sustainable landscape design firm in the Richmond Area. Through her landscape design business, Scotty employed and mentored young professionals destined for careers in the landscape design industry and taught others to value sustainable landscape and green infrastructure maintenance and the people that do it. Scotty was an incredibly creative and caring person who loved nature, believed we can repair the planet and live sustainably together in the future, and worked to engage and inspire generations of young people to do the same.
For a cleaner Chesapeake Bay, start with the maintenance crew
It all begins with a single, innocuous raindrop.
Instead of splattering onto soil and oozing into the ground, as it would have done a half-millennium ago, the droplet lands on a roof, road or parking lot. From there, it zips along one hard surface to another. Until this tiny traveler finds a larger body of water — a ditch, a creek, the Potomac River — it is fair game for any pollutant that wants to tag along . . . READ MORE
Why Conservation Landscaping?
Our actions are closely linked to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Stewardship of the land and water by each and every one of us is our most effective tool to improve and protect the Bay. Conservation landscaping is working with nature to reduce pollution. Conservation-focused landscapes incorporate environmentally-sensitive design, minimize polluted runoff, conserve water and are planted with native plants. They protect the soil and are maintained using the minimum amount of chemicals to help protect clean air and water, support wildlife, and provide a more beautiful, healthier human environment.
With so many people living and moving into the Chesapeake region, polluted runoff from streets, farms, construction sites and yards, has become an increasing problem. Contaminants from every home and community—sediments, sewage, manure, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and motor oil—can be carried into the Bay from local streams and waterways. How we manage our landscapes is important to all of us! You can embrace the responsibility of caring for the land, and protect the Chesapeake Bay by applying the principles of conservation landscaping. We invite you to explore our web resources, participate in our events, subscribe to our listserve or donate your time or money to support these learning opportunities. Each of us has the opportunity to protect the future health of our communities and Bay by how we envision and care for our landscapes.
