Aquatic Planting Day Recap

Christine recaps Saturday's event:

"The aquatic planting day in Little Lake was a success!

A big thanks goes out to the ten people who volunteered their time to plant over 200 aquatic plants in the shallow water along the shoreline of Little Lake. Five different types were planted in the lake: pickerel plant, northern blue-flag iris, sweet-flag iris, water plantain, and arrowhead. All of the plants chosen are native to Wisconsin and were grown in Wisconsin; the arrowhead was actually harvested from our own Mud Lake! These plants can grow in up to 14” of water, so they will remain along the shoreline and will not grow out to the center of the lake.

The goals of the plantings are to establish an aquatic buffer zone along the perimeter of the lake, to provide competition for nutrients with algae, and to shade a portion of the sediments thereby inhibiting filamentous algal growth. One bale of barley straw was also recently sunk to help inhibit filamentous algal growth as the straw decomposes.

The next phase of shoreline restoration will involve on-shore plantings around the lake. These plants will help to filter water of nutrients and debris before entering the lake basin, provide habitat for birds and butterflies, and even help to deter geese that are afraid there may be predators lurking in the prairie plants surrounding the lake.

Stay tuned for stage two volunteer opportunities next spring!"