CUMBERLAND — When Thomas and Rebecca Ferleman moved to Western Maryland, they were awestruck by its mountainous beauty.
After purchasing the Ferleman Art Gallery four years ago, the pair decided to look to the Georges Creek Valley to further appreciate the scenery of the Alleghenies.
“At Ferleman Gallery, we recognize the profound connection between art and nature,” said Thomas Ferleman.
Ferleman purchased nearly 200 acres of reclaimed coal mining land on Georges Creek and quickly noticed an abundance of invasive foliage, most notably, Japanese knotweed.
That’s when the Maryland Department of Natural Resources got involved — and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
“It’s a beautiful restoration plan,” said Ferleman. “Everything improved from there.”
DNR planted 3,650 native hardwoods and evergreens in Allegany County in 2024, adding up to 12 acres on the Ferleman’s property.
Since 2023, DNR has been working on the 5 Million Trees for Maryland initiative, a project that aims to restore previously forested areas of the state affected or damaged by human activity.
The ultimate goal is to plant 5 million trees on public and private lands by 2031.
The initiative was mandated by the Tree Solutions Now Act of 2021, and is funded by grants managed by the Western Maryland Resources and Conservation Council.
In Western Maryland, particularly the Georges Creek Valley, coal mining has had detrimental effects on the ability for native trees to properly come back in a process called ecological succession.
Theodore Hoxie, a DNR tree planting specialist in Allegany and Garrett counties, said that strip mining has removed various critical elements from topsoil that allow native foliage to grow properly.
“They’ve already taken out all of the topsoil and removed the entire native seed bed,” said Hoxie.
“So there’s no microbial fungi or carbon in the soil.”
Hoxie said the consequences of coal mining are what hinders native plants from “naturally establishing” themselves in abandoned coal mine lands.
“On coal mine land, (ecological succession) takes hundreds or thousands of years,” Hoxie said. Normally, native succession takes a much shorter amount of time.
In November, the 1 millionth tree for the project was planted in Western Maryland, an important milestone for the project.
Nearly 100 public and private landowners are involved with the 5 Million Tree initiative so far, while 140.76 acres of formerly mined lands have been planted or funded for planting since spring 2020.
“We need to partner with hundreds of landowners around the state to make this possible,” said Hoxie. “And we’re doing a great job up to this point in time.”
Hoxie said that any landowner in the state with more than one acre of land is eligible for tree planting. The process includes three years of DNR maintenance and tree planting at no cost to the landowner.
“It’s an incredible deal,” said Hoxie.
Ferleman said that he and his wife have learned a lot about the ecology of Western Maryland while cooperating with the DNR.
“We are stewards of lands that we have been given,” Ferleman said.
If the goals of the initiative are reached, Hoxie said there will be approximately one tree planted for every Marylander.
In addition to reforestation, the initiative aims to plant 10% of its trees in “undeserved” urban areas. According to the DNR, those areas are defined as “hazardous” from the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation.
To learn more about the initiative, go to the DNR’s website or contact Hoxie at theodore.hoxie@maryland.gov.