Neighborhood Update

Woods Creek in December 2025 after a brief rain. Credit: Amy DeHart.

A note from our Executive Director, Ben Eland

One of Boxerwood’s longstanding neighbors is the Lexington Golf & Country Club. Our shared property line meanders several acres alongside a small spring-fed creek that enters our wetland pond, then flows further downhill as an unnamed tributary of Woods Creek. With our neighbor in the midst of significant relandscaping, this shared boundary presents both an opportunity and a responsibility. After all, protecting our watershed is in everyone’s best interest.

Boxerwood has long held a special concern for protecting watersheds, especially our own, from Woods Creek to the Chesapeake Bay. Changes in land practices next door have given us new opportunities to promote watershed education and action. Our environmental education mission means we’re doing what Boxerwood does best: developing relationships, engaging in dialogue, and sharing information. We’re also taking additional conservation actions on our own land, rooted in science and care for place.

In our role as educators, a few months ago we shared environmental information with golf course administrators who met with us to discuss the removal of trees near our common boundary. As part of the walk-around, we pointed out the vital role trees play in riparian buffers that protect watershed health. Tree root systems stabilize stream banks while canopy shade helps maintain healthy water temperatures. Layered vegetation filters pollutants before they reach waterways, and vertical structure creates habitat that supports a wide range of biodiversity. 

While our neighbor ultimately had their own plans for their land, we’re still grateful we had an opportunity to meet and share our earthcare knowledge. The golf course did remove a number of trees in that area, though it does have plans to add native grasses along the border.

As for our own responsibilities, Boxerwood will be planting more trees on our side of the boundary to further protect the creek as we can. 

Next month, more than 80 middle school students will travel to Boxerwood to put our watershed protection plan into action. The students are members of the National Junior Honor Society of both LDMS and MRMS and as an act of service they will be working in small groups to plant 100 fast-growing pines along our boundary line.  We are very grateful! This hands-on stewardship project will help restore critical riparian function. Equally important, it demonstrates to the rising generation that we can take strides together to protect watershed health.

While we remain concerned about the impact of landscape changes on Woods Creek and beyond, we are heartened by the way the youth we teach have come to our aid. Neighbor helping neighbor. Thank you, friends.