Blue Lakes

A new program to help sustain lake health in The Land Between!

The Land Between charity in partnership with Watersheds Canada (makers of the Love your Lake program) are piloting the new Blue Lake ecolabel program for Lake Country! It is poised to be the gold standard in lake stewardship.

Blue Lakes status comes with a portfolio of tools, training, and an agile database where you can add data and access real-time information and trends regarding your lake’s health – all in the palm of your hand!  To become a Blue Lake,  associations or groups of landowners agree to adopt stewardship principles and actions. To find out more about the program, visit www.bluelakes.ca

 

Design Your Own Shoreline Gardens

Our most popular workshop – Design Your Own Shoreline Garden with The Land Between– and now with Watersheds Canada too!

Your shoreline can be natural but also beautiful, while maintaining access to the lake and great lake views. Attract butterflies and pollinators. Help your lake’s fish habitats and water quality. Deter nuisance geese. Increase privacy…All while supporting our healthy ecosystems for future generations.

Come to this workshop and take home a custom garden design for your shore using native plants which are tailored to your aesthetic and your needs!

Join seasoned experts with over 20 years’ experience in naturalizing, restoring, and designing shoreline gardens across Ontario.

These 3 hour workshops are in a classroom setting. Bring pictures of your shoreline. Here about why your shore is significant to the health of the lake and why your choices are important. Learn about plants, design aspects, lighting effects. Choose colours, heights, areas and more. Landowners can also take part in case studies here, to learn from other examples.

Now too, use the Natural Edge App and Amazing Plant Database to help choose plants for your site.

Our Shoreline Garden Workshops have made the news! Read about them in the Muskoka and Haliburton Life Magazine! Haliburton and Muskoka Life Magazine. Shoreline Garden Editorial

Even local groups come to us for advice!

 Abbey Gardens shoreline/restoration ecology staff have attended our workshop in Haliburton and took away lessons in deterring geese, soil science and design expertise for public and private sites. Our staff/contractors have designed keystone shoreline gardens and goose deterrent projects for: Halls/Hawk Lake park in Algonquin Highlands; Rivera Park in Lindsay; Big Bald Lake Association; for Mr. Paul McIinnis’ property, president of the Coalition of Haliburton Property Owners Associations (pictures below)  frequently showcased publicly as a demonstration site; at Head Lake in Dysart et al and for Haliburton Lake Association’s Public Beach; and many private contractors too…

  Landowners learn and have fun too!

“I was expecting a dry presentation, cold hard facts, but you added such colour, your enthusiasm was evident, your energy palpable. I thoroughly enjoyed myself! And I learned stuff!!!!” Sharon Petrini, Haliburton County

“Thank you Leora for Saturday’s workshop. My husband and I both found it informative. We came away with some great ideas on how we can both beautify and naturalize our shoreline property.” 

“If you have not heard enough praise for the Friday Workshop I will add it was amazing, & I think I learned a lot.  It seems my long held convictions of 58 years are being challenged everywhere.  The more I learn the more I know I do not know very much!” Terry Goodwin, Haliburton

We look forward to working with you to preserve the health and well-being of your lake and the Land Between bioregion. 

TLB’s affordable and exciting workshops are held each year from April to October across the region. Workshops run 10 am to noon and are $20/per person at the door. Please bring a picture of your shoreline. Coffee and snacks are served.

We are finished for the year. Stay tuned for dates in 2019 or book one for your lake association by contacting us.  

Workshop topics include:

• permits
• native plants
• increasing biodiversity and functions (pollinators, birds, fish habitat improvement etc.)
• invasive species
• nuisance goose control
• limiting nutrient runoff
• erosion considerations
• plant species preferences
• design aesthetics
• step-by-step design

*Please note that erosion control may be discussed at sessions, but erosion control designs will not be developed in these workshops. Instead they will require onsite site visits.

Once you attend, you can also order our Shoreline Starter Kits!

These Starter Kits are beginner baskets of shoreline plants for specific shoreline soils. See Shoreline Plant Guides and Starter Kits for more details

Too, we can order and deliver the plants that have been chosen for your design at the meetings.

Onsite consultations are also available.

For now, here are our Shoreline Garden Handouts and guides to help you get started:

1. Permit requirements and Good Plants/Bad Plants lists (some nursery stock may actually be locally invasive and out-compete our native plants. They can be hard to remove and hard to control, such as periwinkle, zebra grasses, etc. Find out what native plants are good substitutes). Permit requirements. Good Plants Bad Plants. SG Handouts1
2. Native Shoreline Plant Guide (native plants for The Land Between region in a chart format. This quick chart/guide is specific to shorelines/riparian areas and gives you an idea of choices that suit your soil types, moisture regimes, and also tells you what attracts pollinators, birds etc.) restoration plants.shores

3. And you can watch our instructional video

 

This program has been sponsored by RBC’s Bluewater Foundation in 2016, and 2017, and the Great Lakes Guardian Conservation Fund in 2018.