We are excited to start Garden Club for 2023. Thank you to our incredible host, Arlene Doran. Arlene has lived in Loch Lomond for over 20 years and maintains a grass free, mostly native backyard and buffer strip, the neighboring ravine and maintains South Beach Buffer Strip.
Special recognition goes to Jane Zoellick Haller, owner of Catbird Native Ecosystems and Chris Baker, Curator for Chicago Botanical Garden. They both lent their expertise to our topics.
Invasive and exotic plants are “any species, including its seeds, eggs, spores, or other biological material capable of propagating that species, that is not native to that ecosystem; and whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” (invasive.org)
One of the most invasive hedges in our area is Buckthorn. If we all work together to remove what we can, our entire neighborhood will benefit! Lake County Forest Preserve has fantastic resources to learn more about removal (https://www.lcfpd.org/what-we-do/conservation/invasivespecies/). Buckthorn can be tossed in your yard waste cans.
When you are removing you want to ensure you have a plan on replacement. A good resource for replacement ideas is Healthy Hedges (https://chicagorti.org/program/healthy-habitat-series/)
Once you have won the battle with BuckThorn LCFP will award you a sign to display in your yard (https://www.lcfpd.org/conservation/buckthorn-free-application-form/).
Garlic Mustard is a Bi-Annual bloomer. It will take over native areas quickly. (https://www.invasive.org/browse/subinfo.cfm?sub=3005)
Other invasive plants to remove are Siberian Squill, Multiflora Rose, Reed Canary Grass and Star of Bethlehem. Do you have other invasive plants we should know about? One of the residents noticed a huge amount of Teasel on the Berm by the dam. This will be brought up to our Lake Management Committee and our landscapers.
Overwhelmed by your new passion?
Weeds – A great resource: https://www.goodoak.com/info/weeds/index.php. The website has a weed characterizer which will direct you to the worst weeds to remove first.
Native Plants – A great resource : https://naturalcommunities.net/pages/midwest-marsh-emergent-warrior-plants; Warrior plants are a great option to overtake invasive weeds.
The Garden Club is expanding and partnering with Lake Management. Two lake management committees will be involved; Native Plants and Education. This partnership will allow us to participate in community projects. We can learn how to improve our yards and help our neighborhood to be more sustainable and help clean the lake. Our 2023 Garden club projects are Floating Islands and a Native Garden buffer strip garden at South Beach.
Floating Islands, are 8’x10’’ and will be placed in 4 different locations around our lake. Old Pier by South Beach, Firth Canal, North Beach and the Dam. Placing these islands in the inlets will be our first defense to improving the lake quality. Floating islands or wetlands and packed full of native plants. As we have learned Native Plants eat harmful toxins which are bad for our lake. In addition, it gives great homes to turtles, young birds and turtles, gives a great spot for fish to eat and hide.
South Beach Native Garden Buffer Strip, will be a location between our swimming pier and the boat ramp where experts have identified our buffer strip not being dense enough. Chris Baker has designed an incredible plan for an interactive area which will also help our lake. We will be officially rolling out the plan at SpringFest, April 8.
Arlene has worked closely and South Beach and on her own shoreline. With her expertise we have plans to use the below list of plants. We are hoping with all of the other great resources in the neighborhood you might have some suggestions. Other area resources include University of Illinois, they have an extension close to CLC which we are taking soil samples to and they will return a great plant list we can use in the area. The plants we have seen good luck include: Golden Alexander, Blue False Indigo, Blue Flag Iris, White False Indigo, Rose or Swamp Milkweed, Obedient Plant, New England Aster, Swamp Rose Mallow, Sneezeweed, Coneflowers, Zig-Zag Goldenrod, Red Twig Dogwood, and Winterberry. Do you know of plants which have worked well for your area or some which have not?
Please be on the lookout for Garden Clubs to assist with these projects.
Please join us at our next Garden Club on April 5th, 6pm at 218 Banbury Rd. Lake County Forest Preserve will be teaching us about Rain Gardens.
We also have been invited to Mundelein Tool Library (428 N Chicago Ave, Mundelein, IL 60060), April 11th, 7pm where we will be learning about Butterfly Gardens.
Want to be included in the garden club email list, email events@lochlomondlake.com.