Landscape Committee

By Mary Sapp, Chair 

Project in Progress  

Please join us Saturday, May 31, for Lakeport’s Spring Workday. We will meet at Triangle Park at 9:00 a.m. If you want to help spruce up our community’s landscaping as part of I Love Lakeport Day, email msapp@miami.edu. Please bring work gloves and any garden tools (e.g., pruning shears, shovels, hand gardening tools to help with weeding) that you might have (or just yourself). We will haul debris from some of the dead trees and branches that will be cut down, weed by the RA path going to the pool and in the rain garden, cut back bushes behind homes on the north side of Lakeport Way, remove invasive vines, and trim dead branches from small shrubs around Lakeport. Volunteers are appreciated!

Meadows Farms will replace two additional warrantied shrubs (no cost), Complete Landscaping Service will replace several liriope destroyed by snowplows at the entrance, and some other replacement heucheras will be purchased for Triangle Park. 

Projects Completed 

Complete Landscaping installed new landscaping at the entrance to Lakeport, including six callicarpa(beautyberry) bushes in the raised section on the entrance-lane side plus four purple Heuchera Plum Pudding, five green Heuchera Citronelle, and five gold Heuchera Caramel on the lower level to supplement three Blue Star Junipers and seven Heucheras remaining from earlier installations. They also planted three callicarpas and two pink Spirea Little Princess bushes in the raised section on the exit-lane side plus nine gold Heuchera Caramel and nine green Heuchera Citronelle on the lower level to supplement three Blue Star Junipers and a few Heucheras remaining from earlier installations.

Riverbend Landscapes & Tree Service removed two ailing white pines near the entrance that were deemed a threat to homes downhill from them and a dead chestnut oak at the end of Lakespray whose branches posed a hazard for nearby pedestrians and vehicles, and they also trimmed nine trees. In addition, they did tree work contracted by five owners. See photos of impressive tree work below.

Complete Landscaping replaced nine wax myrtles and two rhododendrons next to Lakespray at no cost and allowed us to replant the ailing wax myrtles and rhododendrons that had been struggling there. Most were planted by volunteers between 1930 and 1932 Lakeport Way (see photo to right).

Meadows Farms made two visits to install replacements for dead trees and shrubs in Triangle Park and our natural wooded areas that were warrantied and to move two other trees. The trees included two hollies, a sweet bay magnolia, a redbud, and a dogwood, and the shrubs included three evergreen inkberry bushes, a hydrangea, four clethra bushes, two ferns, and two sedges. Half of these replacements were free, and most of the labor costs of the rest were covered by credits from not replacing a tree in 2023 and a rhododendron this year. 

 The Fairfax Invasive Removal Alliance (FIRA), whose mission includes finding ways to help manage invasive plants on private land, paid a visit to Lakeport on March 1, pointing out invasive vines and helping volunteers remove them (see photo to right). More removal of invasives will be done during the Spring Workday on May 31.

Please remember that owners and residents are not allowed to remove, add, or prune plants in common areas without the permission of Lakeport’s Landscape Committee, and we ask that you consult with us before paying to have branches overhanging your property trimmed/removed.