Lakefront Park Buffer Strip Revitalization

The Buffer Strip Garden encompasses a 170 by 30 foot area along the shoreline of Otsego Lake. In order to reduce the extensive scope of the garden and improve plant selections, a variety of hardy, low profile, low maintenance, and deep rooting grasses and sedges will be introduced in mass plantings. This area is immediately adjacent to a central 180 square foot area of lakeshore. Other plantings (such as creeping cotoneaster and hydrangea) will be transplanted into areas not abutting the shoreline. This reconfiguration will shrink maintenance demands by requiring less weeding over the long term while maintaining a natural landscape and providing the necessary rooting in the most important area for an effective buffer. In addition, another 600 square foot area will be targeted where taller grasses will be introduced along the perimeter of the garden to replace invasive volunteers and screen an adjacent boat launch. These will add height where the lake view is not impacted.

These improved plant selections, site remediation, and horticulture expertise will be the initial renovation expenditures. In the subsequent years, invasive snowberry plantings which have overrun part of the area and threaten to impact the accessible boardwalk will be removed and replaced. The $6000 Partners for Plants grant would enable staging the project over 3 years and underwrite the installation of improved plantings and the heavy labor necessary for removal of some of the existing plantings. The Lakefront Buffer Strip Garden was designed with multifaceted goals. It sought to provide a living buffer which would protect the lake shoreline from erosion and sedimentation. This erosion into the water affects water quality. In addition to contaminating drinking water, sedimentation from the soil covers aquatic and shoreline plants, making a significant impact on the entire lake ecosystem. Modern groomed lakeshores have been a major contributor to these problems by clearing lakefronts of natural vegetation and replacing it with lawns that are mowed to the shoreline. This has deprived most woodland and aquatic species the basic habitats necessary for survival and left lakes without natural buffers to filter out pernicious chemicals and potential pollutants. A buffer zone’s deep rooting plants stabilize shorelines and banks and help replace shoreline wildlife habitats. The Buffer Strip in Cooperstown’s Lakefront Park has been a demonstration of this concept in action. While these conservation measures continue to be paramount goals of the Buffer Strip Garden, there are some unique horticultural, use, and maintenance demands which need to be better accommodated.

The garden is located adjacent to a public boat launch, and over the years two Village boat mooring piers have been constructed which are now reached from the garden’s accessible boardwalk. In addition to local residents who access their boats, walk their dogs, and enjoy relaxing on the park’s benches, there are several thousand tourist visitors each year who visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and explore the beautiful vistas of the headwaters of the Susquehanna River from the park. The plantings in the garden take wear and tear from all this human use. They also must, in most locations, maintain moderate height to allow for water views. In addition, the buffer strip’s lakeshore location makes it subject to Nature’s vagaries such as volunteer seedings from the winds that blow unimpeded the length of the lake, droughts, seasonal ice buildup, and flooding along the shoreline. These issues and the size of the garden have contributed to significant maintenance issues. Better plant selections will be in sync with the goal of a natural landscape and compliment an existing smaller, more formal area of cultivated plantings and pollinator garden.

The Lakefront Buffer Strip Garden is a collaborative project. The Lake and Valley Garden Club will spearhead the project, but as in the past, community partners including the Village of Cooperstown, the Otsego Lake Association, and the Otsego Northern Catskill BOCES will be actively involved. The Buffer Strip has been a living, learning environment for everyone involved. The garden has been a hard worker and great teacher. The Founders Fund Grant enabled Lake and Valley Garden Club to install this wonderful garden. The Partners for Plants Grant would help to refine and perpetuate it.