Nursery Refuge Mowed Down, Catonsville Leaders Furious

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — A freshly planted grove of trees on the old Spring Grove Hospital property in Catonsville has been mowed off, infuriating the Catonsville Community Conservation Association.

According to WMAR, no one wasn't notified that trees were being planted on the property where a nursery was created. The CCCA contends it should've been notified they were being mowed down and it had posted signs surrounding the nursery refuge indicating its location. County leaders also say they don't know who cut them down and if the trees are indeed located on county or state property.

A thousand trees donated by the Virginia Department of Forestry once dotted the ground, but now only a couple of dozen remain.

“You see the signs,” said Jim Himel, a resident forester with CCCA. “For anybody who can read, when you see a sign that says ‘Tree Preservation Area’, if you’re on a mower that should stop you from going in there or at least you temporarily stop, get on your phone, call your supervisor and see what’s what. That didn’t happen here.”

But no one asked the county for permission to plant the trees and establish a nursery refuge, WMAR noted, if it's the county's property to begin with.

Conservationists say the county has "historically pushed back on their efforts to plant trees elsewhere so they no longer seek its approval."

“The county is supposedly wanting to plant trees, but they say they don’t have the money to do it themselves so they get a group to do it, and this is what happens,” CCCA President Cheryl Wasmund said.

WMAR reports that county leaders say it has planted 26,000 trees, almost 200 acres worth in Baltimore County.