Eden & Dane01Summary
You asked for three things: a clearer view of the lake from the porch, berries and a small kitchen garden, and far less lawn to mow, all without creating work that needs you on site while the house is empty. All three are achievable, and they support each other. The lawn that runs down to the water is both the biggest maintenance cost on the property and the thing most likely to put you at odds with the state's shoreland rules. Replacing it with a native buffer planting is the first move, and it is the move that makes the rest of the plan work.
The one problem to fix before anything is planted is the driveway. Runoff from the drive and the north roof has cut a gully that carries sand toward the lake in every heavy storm. That is year one, week one.
02Site analysis
Water
The house sits about 120 feet back from the water on a slope that falls toward the lake. The north roof drains onto the gravel drive, and the drive sheds straight downhill. Your video at 6:40 shows the gully below the turnaround, roughly 30 feet long and deepening toward the shore path. The south roof has no gutters and drips onto a bare strip along the foundation. Everything else on the lot soaks in well: the wooded slope to the west shows no sign of surface flow.
Soil
The soil test shows a pH of 5.2 with low phosphorus and moderate organic matter, typical of stony glacial till over granite. That is poor ground for a conventional vegetable garden without work, and excellent ground for blueberries, which want exactly this acidity. We will not lime the slope. We will build raised beds for vegetables near the house instead.
Light
The clearing between the house and the lake faces south-southeast and gets full sun from mid-morning. Tall white pines along the west line shade the western third of the lawn after about 3 pm in midsummer. The best sun on the property is the upper part of the slope, just below the porch, which is also outside the shoreland buffers.
Constraints
- Shoreland rules. The entire lawn and most of the clearing lie within 250 feet of the lake, so the Shoreland Water Quality Protection Act applies. The first 50 feet from the water are the waterfront buffer, where tree and ground cover removal is limited, and the first 150 feet carry a natural woodland buffer requirement.
- Fertilizer. None within 25 feet of the water, and only low phosphorus, slow release fertilizer from 25 to 250 feet. The current lawn service should be told this in writing.
- Deer. Your photos show browse on the yews by the steps. Anything edible needs fencing or a deer resistant choice.
- Absence. Nothing in the plan should need weekly attention between September and June.
03The plan, in order
- Gutter the north roof and send it to a small rain garden on the uphill side of the drive, sized for about 1,000 square feet of roof.
- Install a stone-lined infiltration trench across the drive just above the gully, so the drive's runoff soaks in instead of running downhill.
- Regrade and seed the gully with a native conservation mix, and armor its lower end with stone where the flow was fastest.
- Confirm with NHDES whether the trench and rain garden need a shoreland permit before any digging. Planting alone usually does not; excavation near the shore often does.
- Stop mowing the lowest 50 feet of lawn and plant it as a native shoreline buffer: shrubs in drifts, with a four foot mown path kept open to the dock.
- Plant in late August or September, when the soil is warm and the fall rains start, so the shrubs root in before you close the house.
- Mulch heavily with shredded leaves or wood chips and water in once. After the first year the buffer needs one cleanup visit a season.
- Plant twelve highbush blueberries in two rows on the upper slope below the porch, in the full sun and acid soil they want, inside a simple deer fence.
- Build three 4 by 12 foot raised beds beside the fence for greens, herbs and tomatoes, filled with a purchased blend rather than native soil.
- Add haskap and currants along the fence line: both are hardy, early, and unbothered by the cold.
- Run drip irrigation on a timer from the house spigot so the beds survive a dry July week when nobody is there.
- Rather than removing trees, limb up the pines in the view corridor and prune selectively, which the shoreland rules generally allow within limits. Have a licensed arborist confirm the plan against the buffer rules before any cutting.
- Keep the shoreline shrubs below four feet in the corridor by choosing low species there, so the view stays open without annual shearing.
04Plant palette
Chosen for zone 5, acidic soil, full sun to part shade, deer pressure, and a garden that looks after itself while you are away. Natives first.
| Where | Plants | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Shoreline buffer | Sweet gale, meadowsweet, winterberry, red osier dogwood, highbush blueberry | Native to New England lakeshores, root deeply, hold the bank, tolerate wet feet |
| View corridor | Lowbush blueberry, sweet fern, bearberry | Stay low, spread into a groundcover, thrive in thin acid soil |
| Woodland edge | Serviceberry, witch hazel, hay-scented fern | Handle the pine shade on the west line, early flowers and fall color |
| Berry block | Highbush blueberry (two or more varieties), haskap, red and black currants | Hardy to zone 3 or 4, fruit in June and July when the house is full |
| Rain garden | Blue flag iris, swamp milkweed, Joe Pye weed, switchgrass | Take periodic flooding and dry spells, and feed pollinators |
Sourcing
Native shrubs in quantity: a regional native plant nursery for the buffer and the rain garden, ordered in winter for late summer delivery. Blueberries, haskap and currants: any reputable northern fruit nursery, choosing varieties rated for zone 4. We supply a full list with quantities and spacing, and review substitutions if an item is out of stock.
05Rules and programs
- Shoreland Water Quality Protection Act (RSA 483-B). Governs everything within 250 feet of the lake, including the buffers above and a 20 percent cap on impervious surface in the protected shoreland. Your house, drive and shed together are well under it, so no hardscape in this plan is at risk. NHDES Protected Shoreland FAQ.
- Fertilizer limits. No fertilizer within 25 feet of the water, low phosphorus and slow release only from 25 to 250 feet. The native plantings in this plan need none. NH LAKES guidance.
- Cost-share. Federal EQIP funding is for working farms and does not fit a residential property of this kind. The lake association is worth a call: many run shoreline buffer programs, plant sales or volunteer help.
- Current use taxation. Generally starts at 10 acres in New Hampshire, so this parcel does not qualify. Worth revisiting only if you buy adjoining land.
06Brief for your local installer
Hand this section to the contractor. It is written so a competent local landscaper can price and build it without us on site.
- Year one scope: gutter and downspout on the north roof, a rain garden of roughly 100 square feet, a 30 foot stone infiltration trench across the drive, and gully repair with native seed and stone.
- Shoreline buffer: about 2,500 square feet planted at the spacing on the plant list, mulched, with a four foot mown path to the dock. No fertilizer. No tree removal.
- Ask for a shoreland permit check before excavation, and a photo of each stage sent to us for review.
- Plant only in late spring or late summer to early fall. No midsummer planting without irrigation.
07Your follow-up call
On the 60-minute call we walk through this document together, answer questions, and adjust anything that does not fit how you use the place. Bring your contractor's questions if you have them. If you later want a full master plan with a site visit, the fee for this strategy counts toward it.
Prepared by Eden and Dane, Great Falls, Virginia. Sample document for illustration.