Greening Your Neighborhood
The Greening Your Neighborhood (GrYN) program was created and implemented by Nature Forward (formerly Audubon Naturalist Society) in partnership with Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and others, and ran from 2020 to 2022. The program is now fully self-guided and provides the approaches you need to partner with your HOA Board to successfully complete an ecologically-focused project in your community. Your project could take many forms: getting native trees planted on common property; installing a rain garden; securing community funding for invasive plant removal; creating an official Conservation Committee; or any other results-oriented conservation goal you might have.
What Does the Program Entail?
Bioswale at River Creek HOA
Photo by BJ Lecrone
This self-guided program provides information to help you build the skills and identify the support you need to envision and implement an ecologically sustainable project in your community. The materials cover working with your Board and involving residents to ensure the best chance of long-term success.
The program entails watching various webinars, filling out a worksheet to help you build out your own community’s plan and a self-guided tour of green infrastructure projects in Loudoun County to provide inspiration.
The suggested timeframe to successfully implement your conservation project is approximately one and a half years. Depending on where your HOA is in accepting conservation practices, it may go faster or take longer. Take things as slow as you need to to help drive change. Be a good listener. Get residents and decision makers to experience conservation projects in person in other places to help inspire them. Bring ideas back from other communities who have already done this. Build a community of people who are excited to support a conservation project.
If you have questions, contact info@loudounwildlife.org.
Webinars
- GrYN orientation session – a 20 minute overview of the program including goals and commitments
- Begin creating an action plan for your community project (view agenda / view recording)
- Advocacy 101 (Renee Grebe, ANS) – Follow along with this worksheet
- Get inspired hearing about River Creek’s Confluence Park (Jack McNamee, Resident)
- Learn about Loudoun County Stormwater (Chris Stone, Loudoun County)
- Get inspired with some project ideas (view agenda / view recording)
- Tackling Invasive Plants in your HOA (Beth Mizell, Blue Ridge PRISM)
- Right Tree, Right Place, Right Care (Jordan Herring, VA DOF)
- Meadows and HOA landscaping (Susan Abraham, Landscape Designer)
- List of resources referenced throughout these presentations
Self-guided Tour
- View/download Loudoun County green infrastructure projects tour booklet, which provides a short history of the projects and insights into the process taken to implement them
- It is instructive to to visit these sites in multiple seasons. What various projects look like in winter can be very different to how they look in the spring or summer.
Other Program Resources
All of the program resources are available online on Google Drive, including these additional resources:
- Three page list of Loudoun resources, regional organizations, and ideas for grants (last updated in 2020)
- Invasive plant resources
- Examples of resources from other HOAs (e.g. committee charter, presentations)
Funding and Partners
This program was made possible through generous support from the Virginia Environmental Endowment, the Prince Charitable Trusts, an anonymous family foundation, and Fairfax Water, and in partnership with Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, Piedmont Environmental Council, Plant NOVA Natives, and the Banshee Reeks Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists.
