Landscape Committee

By Mary Sapp

You can help beautify Lakeport by joining your neighbors for our spring workday on Saturday, May 6, as part of “I Love Lakeport Day.” Email msapp@miami.edu to volunteer. We’ll meet in Triangle Park at 9:00 a.m. Please bring work gloves and any weeding implements you may have. Owner Rich Shelton has graciously volunteered to cut down around a half dozen dead trees and use his trailer to help haul debris into a pile for Blade Runners to remove as part of our annual landscape contract. Volunteers are needed to help collect brush, weed a couple of areas, and clean/spruce up our landscaping. 

After obtaining proposals from two arborists, the Board approved having Riverbend Landscape & Tree Service remove two dead double-trunk trees (one near the back of 1964 Lakeport Way and the other next to communication equipment on Lakespray Way) and trim six other trees along Lakeport’s roads. In accordance with a requirement from Reston Association that all stumps visible from a sidewalk or road be removed, Riverbend is also scheduled to grind the stump from a dead spruce adjacent to the sidewalk on the Lakespray hill that was cut down last December. In addition, to try proactively to maintain the health of a 40” white oak beside 11121 Lakespray Way (the largest on our property), SavATree applied ArborKelp, a biostimulant that is supposed to promote root growth and heighten stress tolerance. 

New plants have come to life with our warm weather and rains, and some new plants have also been installed. Three fire engine heucheras were planted on the west side of the entrance (see photo above), along with two sedums in the planter at the entrance (the two blue-green plants in the photo on the right). And Blade Runners will be here next week to plant 32 native plants between 1952 and 1954 Lakeport Way as replacements for plants their crew accidently removed last year. Blade Runners also did a special hydroseeding of two areas that have been experiencing erosion, and volunteers have been watering them.

If you have suggestions for any landscaping areas that should be addressed, please email msapp@miami.edu so we can consider them as we plan other projects for the year.