July News from Chestnut Hill Conservancy

JULY 2020 NEWSLETTER

Missed our Ask the Experts Presentations?

Not to worry!

Earlier this season, our successful virtual series of Ask the Experts lectures brought you Long Live the Raised Bed, with Chris Mattingly and Mike Bennett from Backyard Eats, Energy-Efficient Residential Lighting with Gerry DeSeve, and Landscape Tools to Protect Our Watershed, presented by the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) and a Chestnut Hill homeowner for whom PWD installed a fabulous rain garden.

These recorded lectures are available to view for free, and can be found on our Ask the Experts Program page.

Enjoy!

History at Home…an update

For the last few months The Conservancy has been creating and sending you mission-related activities, building our History at Home collection. These

Although you’ll be hearing from us less frequently over the summer, expect to see new narrated videos from our Illustrated Stories collection, a few more architectural coloring pages (such as the one below), new activities such as games and self-guided tours, more “Bloom Where You Are Planted” installments featuring our Tree of the Month, and other new activities by the Conservancy and partners!

Here’s to a safe and healthy summer. We look forward to creating new activities and memories together, so email us your ideas!

A Beautiful Menace

…The Spotted Lanternfly

The spotted lanternfly, an invasive planthopper insect native to Southeast Asia, has spread throughout Pennsylvania since its 2014 discovery in Berks County. It feeds on the sap of on over 70 plants, including grapevines, apples, hops, maples, black walnut, birch, willow, and other hardwood trees and plants in PA.

Significant stress from feeding damage can harm or kill affected plants. Feeding also leaves behind a sugary excrement called honeydew, which attracts other insects and promotes the growth of sooty mold. Residents are encouraged to remove and dispose of the spotted lanternfly if found on your property, using non-toxic and wildlife-safe methods.

More information about how to identify and control spotted lanternfly, how to report an infestation, and how to comply with quarantine regulations is available on the Penn State Extension website at Spotted Lanternfly. HERE are their instructions to make your own wildlife-safe lanternfly traps.

Other helpful resources include The Wagner Free Institute of Science’s Spotted Lantern Fly lecture recording HERE, and Penn State’s Resources FAQs.

Racial Equity is the Only Path

Chestnut Hill Conservancy’s message of unity and action

In June the Chestnut Hill Conservancy was among a collaborative group of thirteen community-based Chestnut Hill organizations that published a joint statement unequivocally stating that Black Lives Matter and condemning violence and racism. Read the full statement and list of institutions HERE.

Our work now is to put action behind these statements. The Chestnut Hill Conservancy will begin by pledging to:

Encourage and advocate for equitable development, preservation, and conservation, locally and in other area historic and watershed neighborhoods;

Actively listen, learn, and be open to ideas and conversations that are uncomfortable as well as celebratory;

Do a better job as allies and public historians in helping to capture, preserve, and amplify a more inclusive diversity of voices and public histories, especially from the communities of Chestnut Hill, Germantown, and Mt. Airy (the historic German Township);

Utilize our archives and collective memories to learn from earlier efforts at racial equity, and act on those lessons; and

Build a more diverse and inclusive board, leadership team, staff, and vender pool.

We welcome you to contact us (Lori@CHConservancy.org).

All voices are welcome.

Thank you for our successful

2020 Special Appeal!

A message to our community champions:

Because of your commitment to sustaining our common ground, we exceeded our membership and fundraising goals! We’d like to say “thank you” with this special message from our Executive Director, Lori Salganicoff.

Your support ensures that critical work to advocate for and celebrate the history, architecture, and open space in the Chestnut Hill area will continue. Thank you to all of our community champions who contributed to our Special Appeal (listed HERE)!

The Conservancy gratefully acknowledges the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

The Chestnut Hill Conservancy has received a Covid-19 Arts Aid PHL Grant. We thank the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and their generous supporters for making available funds to help organizations such as ours, and to help us continue to do our important work for our cherished community.

We at the Chestnut Hill Conservancy thank you.