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A Habitat for All Seasons
Birds and Beasts Find a Serene Haven at Chambersburg’s Morningstar Meadows.
by Catherine Van Gilder
Photos by Mahlon Yeager Photographics
• • •
“Every season, every day, every hour, something is always happening,” Dave Morningstar tells me, gesturing toward his four-acre yard, teeming with activity, with a view that stretches for miles. His wife, Becky, concurs. “There’s always something to see out here.” Birds of all shapes and sizes flit in and out of sight, pausing at numerous feeders, joining their feathered friends for a dip in the pond, or taking refuge in the lush, colorful vegetation — cardinals, finches, blue jays, mockingbirds, hummingbirds, doves, hawks. Such is the life in Dave and Becky’s very own certified wildlife habitat they’ve fondly christened Morningstar Meadows.
Their property was nothing but a cornfield 20 years ago. Dave found the large, empty plot for sale after his job in the mechanical construction field brought him from Hagerstown to Chambersburg, Pa. “There wasn’t a tree on the place,” Becky, a retired nurse, remembers. He replied at the time, “Give me 15 years!”
After building an attractive, custom home with a screened-in back porch that faced the panoramic view, they set their sights on the barren yard. With no plan to aspire to habitat status, the couple initially planted what they liked, seeking landscape advice from local extension offices. The first tree they bought was a hardy weeping cherry, and the first slew of evergreens came in tin coffee cans. “Every tree was placed to block off traffic, neighbors’ lights, or provide shade,” Dave explains. Dogwoods, maples, magnolias, crabapples, oaks and fruit-bearing trees soon followed, some planted as tiny seedlings.
Becky’s flower gardens took root when she brought trusted perennials with her from her Hagerstown home, inspired by a magazine photo she had saved of a mature, country flower garden. “It looks unplanned and natural,” she says of the photo. A landscape architect once advised her to think about a garden in terms of rooms. With this in mind, she broke up the sweeping lawn with parcels of indigenous plants — chosen for their color, ease and different blooming cycles — working the mostly clay soil to coax flora like black-eyed Susan, butterfly bush, purple coneflower, bee balm and sunflower to flourish.
Find out where you can purchase your copy of Hagerstown magazine to read this story and other articles in the current issue by clicking here.
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