Native Plants: Enhance Your Lakefront Property and Protect Your Lake

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Native Plants: Enhance Your Lakefront Property and Protect Your Lake

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Sunset Extraordinaire over Great East Lake in Acton

We all love Maine for its natural beauty. Planting gardens around lakefront camps, cabins and cottages creates a pretty landscape, but it’s not on the same scale as the natural beauty that surrounds us. Using native plants, however, will help to preserve a naturally beautiful landscape.



Another reason to use native plants is that there’s no need to fertilize them. Fertilizer will wash into the lake with the first rain, adding unnecessary amounts of phosphorus to the water and encouraging algal growth. Less water clarity means less property value.
Non-natives are showy plants and trees that bring with them insects and diseases known to kill natives. Think American Chestnut Blight, Dutch Elm Disease, Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, Birch Canker. The list grows.
That being said, insects on plants are a crucial part of the ecosystem. Ninety-six percent of birds depend on insects for their diet. Birds are disappearing as we modify the landscape. When we add pesticides to control insects, we are affecting the cycle of life–to say nothing of our own health. Signs like “Caution–Pesticide Application” with pictures showing that no adults, children or dogs should go on the land are there because pesticides are hazardous to us as well as the insects.
When thinking about adding to your lakefront landscape, Colin Holme, assistant director at Lakes Environmental Association in Bridgton, encourages people to consider planting down slope of a house, garage, driveway and/or camp road. Using native plants in gardens and the buffer will help preserve the lake or pond and keep it blue.
“It’s important to change your mindset and think about the bigger picture,” says Colin.  “Learn to appreciate what’s around you and take small steps toward making your landscape more friendly for wildlife and the lakefront. Look toward the natural community for composition ideas. Ask for natives at your local nursery–the more people who ask, the more variety they’ll carry.”
Plants to avoid include the following: Oriental Spirea, Ajuga, Vinca, Loosestrife, Honeysuckle (there is a native honeysuckle that is fine–Bush Honeysuckle or Diervilla lonicera), Bittersweet, Barberry Burning Bush. Some are aggressive and others are invasive.
Native Plants to consider using include these: Christmas fern, Maidenhair fern, Bunchberry, Pipsissewa, Woodland phlox, Virginia creeper, Sheep laurel, Wintergreen, Dwarf Iris, Columbine, Cardinal Flower, Hairy Beardtongue, Blueflag iris, Butterfly weed, Beebalm, Sundrops, Purple coneflower, Sneezeweed, Bearberry and Black Eyed Susans. There are others.
Colin highly recommends the following books to help you decide what will work best given the conditions of your property–shady, part sun, full sun, dry, moist, etc. Native Plants of the Northeast by Donald J. Leopold; Wildflowers: A Guide to Growing and Propagating Native Flowers of North America by William Cullina; Native Trees, Shrubs and Vines: A Guide to Using, Growing, and Propagating North American Woody Plants by William Cullina; Native Plants for Your Maine Garden by Maureen Heffernan and The Organic Lawn Care Manual: A Natural, Low-Maintenance System for a Beautiful, Safe Lawn by Paul Tukey.
Lakefront property owners such as those who live on Great East Lake in Acton, know what it means to use native plants around their property. For this reason, the water quality of Great East Lake is rated above average.
To view lakefront properties for sale on Great East Lake, click on the green button above.
To learn more about the lake and Acton, check out the blog links below.
Great East Lake is Acton, Maine’s Golden Pond
Towering Pines Reflect on Sparkling Water of Loon Pond, Acton, Maine

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