‘Planting parties’ helping native plants get a foothold on Utah Lake’s shores

PROVO, Utah ( ABC4 ) — For years, there’s been an ongoing battle on Utah Lake, with crews spraying, mowing and hacking away phragmites, an invasive reed that has grown thick on the lake’s shoreline for decades.

“Phragmites is a beast to handle,” said Sam Braegger, deputy director of Utah Lake Authority .

The water-sapping, gold-colored reeds crowd out all other plants, growing in such dense matts that they effectively wall off the shoreline from both people and animals. Not even small fish can find refuge in the reeds.

But in recent years, Utah Forestry, Fire & State Lands have reduced the invasive plant’s hold on Utah Lake by up to 70%, Braegger said. Now, the Utah Lake Authority is tapping volunteers to help in a pilot project to restore native habitat to the cleared-out areas.

These volunteer efforts are called “planting parties.”

Already this year, hundreds of people — from church groups to local conservation clubs — have stepped up to help plant thousands of cattails, bulrushes, and wildflowers along specific patches of shoreline.

The goal this year is to plant 10,000 seedling “plugs” along areas in Saratoga Springs, Provo, Vineyard, and Lakeshore. The Utah Lake Authority paid for these plugs through a grant and some of the agency’s own funds, Braegger said.

Most of this year’s plants are already in the ground, but there are still a couple thousand plugs left for planting parties in the coming months.

Teri Harman, the director of public outreach for Conserve Utah Valley , participated in the first of the planting parties on Earth Day near her home in Saratoga Springs. Her group of around 50 volunteers planted roughly 700 seedlings.

“It went really fast, and everyone had a ton of fun,” she said.

Just a few days ago, Harman went to check on the plants and found they were doing well, as they’re now submerged following the spring runoff. Utah Lake is currently more than 100% full.

Reflecting on the spring planting party outing, Harman said that she loves getting people to the shore to see what years of restoration efforts have done for the lake, which has historically been plagued by water quality issues and toxic algal blooms, not to mention phragmites.

“There are a lot of rumors about Utah Lake that are really outdated,” Harman said. “The truth of the matter is that the lake is very clean … it’s beautiful, and it’s fun to go and be at the lake.”

While one of the goals of the planting parties is to foster community, another is to identify what kinds of native plants are going to grow best in a long-term effort to revegetate Utah Lake’s entire shoreline.

According to Braegger, the Utah Lake Authority will collect data from the various test sites to determine best practices moving forward. For next year, the goal is to plant 40,000 seedlings. In the meantime, the fight against the phragmites won’t stop.

“It’s kind of like dandelions in your lawn,” Braegger said. “We’re never going to fully get rid of phragmites.”

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