Lake Nottely Improvement Association

As Union County grows and housing expands around Lake Nottely, soil
erosion and pollution will increase and will eventually find its way into the
lake. There are things that we as an Association can do on our own to
help this situation. We can landscape our own properties to reduce our
own erosion and pollution. The way to do this is to build a vegetative
buffer between our homes and the lake. The vegetative buffer can be
done with native plants that will add beauty as well as increase property
values. You start from the winter’s water level low point and climb up to
the point where the lawn begins. Closest to the low water level, you
select plants that are grouped as hydrics. These tolerate wet conditions or
often inundated by water. Some choices might include:

Red Maple
River Birch
Sweet Azalea.

The next group up is mesics, which means they like moist, adequate
soil moisture retention year-round. Plants that fall in this category are:

Flowering Dogwood
Persimmon
Sugar Maple
Low bush Blueberry
Flame Azalea
Carolina Rhododendron
Rosebay Rhododendron
Sunflower.

The next area to fill is the areas that are not moist all year round.
These are call sub-xeric plants and tolerate soil that is seasonally moist and
periodically dry. Some of the plants included in this group are:

Sourwood
American Plum
Post Oak
Mountain Laurel
High bush Blueberry
Black-eyed Susan.

All the plants mentioned will give you outstanding beauty in the four
seasons of the year. This will both enhance your landscape and act as a
vegetative buffer. A vegetative buffer helps absorb and transform
pollutants, anchor the banks to prevent erosion and shade the water to
enhance oxygen retention. Have fun working in your yard while
protecting the shoreline!