Neighborhood Mosquito Spraying Program, Summer 2023

by Wardour Whistler

The Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) mosquito control program conducts night-time spraying in 16 Maryland counties, including ours. The Wardour neighborhood will be sprayed on Monday nights, if mosquito levels are high enough, from June through October. You may file to have your property exempted by filling out the form below and returning it to the Department of Agriculture. Please read the 3 documents below carefully to learn about when spraying will happen, what products are used, keeping kids and pets safe, and how to opt out from spraying if you choose.

  1. How does the state determine whether to spray and what products does it use?
    fogging_letter2023_Mon.pdf
  2. When will spraying happen and what precautions should I take?
    Community_info2023_Mon.pdf
  3. How do I get an exemption?
    https://mda.maryland.gov/plants-pests/Documents/MosquitoControlExemptionForm.pdf
  4. How can I prevent mosquitoes from breeding on my property?

If you have questions about the program, please write to our neighbor Doug Lamartin (check your email for mosquito fogging notice or your Wardour membership directory for his contact information) or contact… 

Maryland Department of Agriculture
Mosquito Control Section
mosquito.control@maryland.gov
410-841-5870

Melvin Traffic Calming

by Wardour Whistler

Median and choker conceptOver the past year, a group of West Annapolis and Wardour residents worked with the city to come up with a plan to address speeding on Melvin Avenue. The plan includes the temporary installation of three traffic calming chokers along Melvin. These islands should cause drivers to slow down by narrowing the road. The bike lanes won’t be interrupted.

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Mosquito Prevention

by Wardour Whistler

Each summer the Maryland Department of Agriculture sprays weekly for mosquitoes in 2100 communities, including West Annapolis and Wardour. Wardour residents can check email for information on when the spraying occurs, what pesticides are used, and how to opt out if you wish. Discussion at our spring meeting this weekend showed, as always, that neighbors feel differently about how to weigh the risks of pesticide exposure vs. exposure to mosquito-borne diseases. What we can agree on is that preventing mosquitoes is better than spraying. When mosquito numbers are low enough, the MDA will skip spraying for that week. The same goes if you’re considering using a commercial mosquito control company: the CDC and EPA recommend starting with removal of mosquito habitat.

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Save your trees, remove English ivy

by Wardour Whistler

Wardour’s trees need your help. Preserving the beautiful old specimen trees that grew along the bluffs was one of Elizabeth Giddings’s top priorities when she chose Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to design the Wardour neighborhood. Their collaboration gave the neighborhood its character as a park or woodland shaded by ancient canopy trees. These trees are not only beautiful but crucial to air and water quality along the Chesapeake Bay. A mature tree can sequester up to a ton of carbon, intercepts storm water in its leaf canopy, and soaks up and filters water that would carry pollutants to the Bay.

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Wardour Reserve Demonstration Conservation Landscape

by Wardour Whistler

Neighbors are invited to join us this Sunday, 10/28, between 9:00 and 11:30 a.m. to help plant a native garden in the Wardour Reserve. You’re welcome to come for a brief shift or stay the whole time, and kids can help plant too. We’ll be planting rain or shine. (Forgive me if I hope for rain–it will be helpful in getting our plants established!) If you have gloves or shovels, please bring those with you.

Description:
Conservation landscapes use native plants with deep roots to slow down and absorb rainwater and runoff, which are major sources of pollutants to the Chesapeake Bay. We’ll be planting a conservation landscape in an area of the Wardour Reserve that is saturated with storm water from a culvert during heavy rain. The plantings will help slow down and absorb this storm water before it reaches Gudger Beach, where the neighborhood is working on a plan to restore the tidal marsh. Capturing some of this water upstream will help keep the marsh water clean and healthy. Slowing down the water will also protect the beautiful path and landscaping that our neighbors along the Reserve created a couple of years ago. The plantings will include low ground cover, shrubs, and flowering perennials that will provide year-round color for us and nesting sites and food for native birds and pollinators.

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The Evolution of Wardour Boundaries and Properties

by Wardour Whistler

To all Wardour Residents:  This is a work in progress shared with us by a past president of the WIA. Any further information, especially from the lawyers concerning the gray areas, will be welcome.

Wardour Bluffs plat, 1907

The community known as Wardour currently comprises about one hundred homes and about one hundred acres on two “Wardour” plats and five additional homes on a third “Wardour” plat.  What we have in common, in addition to  the name, are the prior and independent rights of the owners on the first two plats to use most of the properties on the three plats to which the Wardour Improvement Association (“the WIA”, “the Association”) now holds the deeds.[1]   Wardour boundaries (and the voting rights of owners and of tenants) are defined in our Constitution, and uses of the Association properties are defined primarily in our Declaration.[2]  (Other matters are left to the Bylaws and Standing Orders.)

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