A Living Shoreland - 2015

Here is a small sampling of life at the restored shore:

Installation of Bed Two: UWO Students Taking Care of Business

In May 2016, students and volunteers completed the installation of the second bed in Menominee Park, near the Miller's Bay (Melvin Avenue Stormwater Pump Station).  Below is a visual sequence of the actual day's events.

Step one:  Clear the site of stones, sod and other barriers to seed growth.

Step two:  Spread native seeds

Step three:  Lay and secure erosion control matting to prevent loss of seed and flow of disturbed soil into the lake.  The matting also has the effect of slightly reducing dryout during hot spells.

Step four:  We installed nearly 100 native plugs to help stabilize the soil and to create a healthy growth the first two seasons as seeds become established.

Step five:  Not a routine step in restoration, but a few Parks Advisory Board members have focused on plant height as an evaluation of success, resulting in the committee taking steps to remove taller species from the existing north bed and transplanting to the new bed, along with donations of over 200 plants to Growing Oshkosh, the Sheldon Nature Center, and the Oshkosh Garden Club.  

The Shoreland Group continues to take responsible steps in maintaining a fully healthy restoration site consistent with established city goals while responding to the isolated concern of plant height through community education, engagement in the process, and the gradual transplanting of the tallest species to other community sites that support native plant communities.

Gaps created in the new bed were filled with a diverse selection of low growth native seeds.

Step six:    Celebrate, and take a photo of you with your work!  Special thanks to all of the students from UW Oshkosh's Quest III Sociology Class led by Paul van Auken

Water Pump Station Restoration Site

In the 5 year plan, the Shoreland Group proposed multiple possible restoration expansion sites, all sensitive to the interests of a handful of neighbors who have voiced a preference to not have additional expansion between their home and the lake.   Given the vast amount of waterfront area available in the area, finding alternative areas that serve our efforts was easy.

The Parks Advisory Board recommended authorization for the second restoration site to be located between the water pump station and the lake, across from Webster Stanley Elementary School.  In addition to not being located immediately near a residential home, this property site also serve the function of helping to filter a site where untreated stormwater is pumped directly into the lake.

Below are photos of the planned site prior to any work.

Pump Station side from road by Webster Stanley Elementary

Side view of shore area that will be transformed into a healthy, native environment

Pump Station site from water view

1st Annual Native Plant Sale

In May 2015, the Shoreland Group partnered with local urban farm Growing Oshkosh for a plant sale fundraiser, helping to raise funds for the installation of our second bed.  The sale featured natives grown in Omro, WI, just 10 minutes from Oshkosh, including Butterfly Weed, Nodding Pink Onion, native Asters, and more.

The sale was a great success, thanks to the great planning and entrepreneurship of our partner UW Oshkosh Students and the friendly host team from Growing Oshkosh.

Overall, hundreds of plants were purchased for plantings throughout yards in the Oshkosh area, helping to reintroduce native plants and their benefits into the urban landscape.  More importantly, the sale offered the opportunity to talk about the importance and benefits of native plants and of our efforts of shoreland restoration.  The response and support was tremendous, with the Oshkosh community continuing to demonstrate their support for the restoration of our vulnerable shores.

Growing Oshkosh at work!  (photo courtesy of GO)

The plant sale resulted in sufficient funds to cover 60% of the costs of the new bed, along with providing about 80 native plant plugs at no cost.  The Shoreland Group provided a thank you donation of $50.00 to support the work of Growing Oshkosh.  We look forward to the 2016 sale!

A special thanks to Dani Stolley and crew from Growing Oshkosh, the students that helped deliver, set up and sell plants, Justin Mitchell for organizing the event and coordinating the purchase and delivery of plants, Marshland Aquatic Native Plants for the great price on plants, and to the broader community for all of their support.

UW Oshkosh / Webster Stanley Elementary Collaboration

For the Spring 2015 Semester, Shoreland Restoration chair Justin Mitchell will be leading a group of engaged UW Oshkosh students on a semester-long shoreland restoration management project, including a native plant sale, a community presentation to the local Master Gardeners organization, a native plants of Wisconsin education day with Webster Stanley Elementary School, and a full workday for the installation of a second restoration bed.

The collaboration is part of Dr. Paul van Auken's UW Oshkosh Sociology Quest III course, seeking to connect students with real-world community programming that addressed a shared community problem - specifically the identified water quality and shoreland management concerns cited by the city's contracted assessment of Miller's Bay.

Millers Bay water in 2015.  Glowing green algae highlight the need for 
improved management all along Lake Winnebago, including along 
Oshkosh municipal shore zones.

Fourth grade students from Mrs. Schmidt's 4th grade Webster Elementary class will learn about issues of water quality and the roles that plants play in helping to protect and clean water.  The students will also each grow a native Lupine plant from sprouted seed that they will take home to plant when the weather permits.

New plot design concept, seeking to blend a natural prairie with a partially-designed garden
appearance.  Feedback from three of the Parks Advisory Board suggested that they did not like the
naturalized appearance achieved in the original installation, prompting the Shoreland Group to create
this design model.  

Why Native Plants

"Why Native Plants" is an excerpt from Urban & Suburban Meadows". Doug Tallamy, entomologist and author, highlights the importance of native plants and the native plant/ native insect connection for sustainable landscapes.

Why Native Plants Matter

Restoring native plant habitat is vital to preserving biodiversity. By creating a native plant garden, each patch of habitat becomes part of a collective effort to nurture and sustain the living landscape for birds and other animals.

Over the past century, urbanization has taken intact, ecologically productive land and fragmented and transformed it with lawns and exotic ornamental plants. The continental U.S. lost a staggering 150 million acres of habitat and farmland to urban sprawl, and that trend isn’t slowing. The modern obsession with highly manicured “perfect” lawns alone has created a green, monoculture carpet across the country that covers over 40 million acres. The human-dominated landscape no longer supports functioning ecosystems, and the remaining isolated natural areas are not large enough to support wildlife.

Menominee Park Shoreland Restoration Site Photo, by Mandy Mitchell, 2014

Native plants are those that occur naturally in a region in which they evolved. They are the ecological basis upon which life depends, including birds and people. Without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive. For example, research by the entomologist Doug Tallamy has shown that native oak trees support over 500 species of caterpillars whereas ginkgos, a commonly planted landscape tree from Asia, host only 5 species of caterpillars. When it takes over 6,000 caterpillars to raise one brood of chickadees, that is a significant difference.

Unfortunately, most of the landscaping plants available in nurseries are alien species from other countries. These exotic plants not only sever the food web, but many have become invasive pests, outcompeting native species and degrading habitat in remaining natural areas. 

Creating A Habitat for Endangered Species

Wisconsin is home to over 230 endangered and threatened species of animals, insects and plants.  According to the Wisconsin DNR, 80% of the endangered species in our state utilize shoreland habitat for all or part of their lives.  The destruction of their natural home habitats is what has led to these species to become endangered and potentially extinct from our state.

By restoring shoreland habitat to its natural state, we slowly create an environment that may someday serve as habitat for these endangered species, helping to protect and rebuilt their populations.

A few key elements to a success restoration include use of native plants, elimination of any pesticide or herbicide usage, and sufficient area to successfully create a habitat with sufficient food, space and reproductive protection.

Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens), a native to Winnebago County, was last observed here over 10 years ago. 

William C. Taylor. USDA SCS. 1989. Midwest wetland flora: Field office illustrated guide to plant species. Midwest National Technical Center, Lincoln. Provided by USDA NRCS Wetland Science Institute (WSI)