Maryland's verdant visionaries.

Gather a group of dedicated Garden Club women together and watch an idea take root. When the National Council of State Garden Clubs decided in 1995 that its countrywide theme through 1997 would be "Millions of Trees for the Environment," the nonprofit Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland - comprising 120 clubs with 4,302 active members - threw themselves into the effort.

Tree planting was already traditional for them, based partly on the work of the late Alice Rush McKeon, a visionary roadside beautification activist and president of the Maryland clubs in the 1930s and early '40s. She wrote a booklet, "Sonnets for the Scenic Ease," and in 1959 its invested proceeds started funding tree plantings in conjunction with the Maryland Highway Administration.

Those plantings continue today and Maryland club members remain committed to McKeon's verdant vision. "We're planting trees for several reasons," says Dessie Moxley, past president of the Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland and former land trust chairman of the National Council. "It's not only for beautification, recreation, and enhancing the quality of life, but because it's environmentally sound, appropriate, and desirable. And an investment in the future."

The future of this region's forests is in some peril. Maryland lies within the 64,000-square-mile drainage basin of the Chesapeake Bay, our nation's largest and most productive estuary. When colonists first arrived on the Chesapeake's shores in the 1600s, more than 95 percent of the landscape was forested. But with them came: agricultural expansion, deforestation, and the growth of cities, which together removed almost 70 percent of the watershed's forests by the mid-1800s.

Today more than 13 million people live in the watershed, with urban growth resulting in the permanent loss of almost 100 acres of forests every day, forests that had acted as a natural filter, helping to maintain the Bay's health. While forests alone can't cure all the Bay's ills, conserving and planting trees and using them to reduce pollution will play an important role in Bay restoration.

"Our Garden Clubs continue to help address this problem," says Moxley. "Our 10 clubs of District One along the Eastern Shore were the earliest ones involved, realizing the tree loss was helping to pollute the Bay."

And just how did the Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland answer the national organization's 1995-1997 tree-planting call? They dug in with 50,380 trees of many varieties across the state. "This made me feel wonderful," says Jean Hinman, who was state president then. "We planted on private property, in yards, on the highway - you name it."

One developer, the husband of a garden club member, reported that in 1996, in one, subdivision alone, he had "planted two-and-a-half acres in trees: 375 flowering dogwoods, 650 white pines, 275 red oaks, and 375 crabapples.".

If Alice Rush McKeon's sonnets appealed to the minds and hearts of tree lovers, the trees' themselves have charmed the eyes of both Moxley and Hinman. Says Moxley, presently landscape design and schools chairman for Maryland, "Beyond the stated reasons for planting/conserving trees, there's an additional one: Trees lend depth and dimensional interest to the landscape, their shapes and character adding artistic appeal." Jean Hinman has no favorites, but "enjoys them all ... they're magnificent anytime!"

As to the future, the Federated Garden Clubs of Maryland plan to participate in Global ReLeaf and, with a deep-rooted commitment, will continue to plant trees. "That's part of what we stand for," says Hinman.

Nancy Dawe, a freelance writer and photographer on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, is a frequent contributor to American Forests.