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Summertime in the BelgradesContentsfor Printing Article Summaries |
More on Lawns"[M]any significant ecological By Mike Little "The only good lawn is one that is overgrown." That should be the motto of all camp owners around the lakes. A manicured lawn does not promote nutrient absorption; one of my lake management colleagues includes lawns as impervious surface along with driveways and roads! Watch what happens the next time we have a thundershower. Does the rain soak into your lawn, or does it run over and off? If you must mow your patch, keep it as small as possible. And leave the grass clippings on the ground to rot — they contribute one half to one pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of lawn. They also help to build up the organic content of your soil so that it better holds moisture. Be sure to plant a vegetative buffer strip between your lawn and the lake. Better still is to do away with any lawn near the lake — let it all grow up! Do you come up here to get away — and mow? A well mulched bed of bushes and flowers (five to eight feet wide on flat areas — getting wider with steeper slopes) will beautify your property, provide privacy from boaters on the lake, and help protect the lake — What a bargain! For ideas about what to do with your property, call the Belgrade Lakes Conservation Corps or the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance Watershed Program (both at Mike Little is executive director of the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance. He can be contacted at | ||