Water doesn’t recognize property boundaries, and your water protection efforts shouldn’t either. Across the Suncoast, neighbors are working together to protect and improve the water they share. Get involved with your neighborhood association to change maintenance practices to reduce water pollution. Lead by example with a pilot project to show neighbors that healthy ponds bring back the birds, improve aesthetics, save maintenance costs, and increase property values. Community projects like planting trees and marking storm drains also help protect downstream creeks and bays.
Be a Water Quality Champion and changemaker by volunteering to serve on your HOA’s environment committee, or even on the HOA Board, so you can work to change deed restrictions and maintenance practices to support healthy yards and waterways.
Yards and common areas dominated by turfgrass aren’t very Floridian and contribute to water quality problems. Encourage your HOA to replace grassed street medians and easements with water-thrifty groundcovers and shrubs. The UF-IFAS Extension program has laid the groundwork for you – check out the Suggested Florida-Friendly Landscaping Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions. This model language can be adapted by HOAs to encourage landscapes designed to flourish with minimal care once established.
Landscape maintenance professionals in Sarasota and Manatee counties are required to complete training in Best Management Practices (BMPs) to protect water quality through proper mowing, irrigation, pruning, and disposal of yard waste. Landscape pros who apply fertilizer must get an additional certification demonstrating their knowledge of responsible fertilizer use. Make sure your in-house or contracted landscape maintenance crew is properly certified and following state-approved BMPs (certification look-up). You can even make these professional standards a part of your HOA’s service contract. This model provides a contract example you can customize to suit your own neighborhood’s needs.
Cost: Free – Variable
Lead your community to better pond maintenance practices by starting a neighborhood pilot project to show neighbors that healthy ponds improve aesthetics, increase property values, and bring back the birds.
An easy and impactful first step towards a healthy pond is maintaining at least a 3-foot no-mow zone around neighborhood stormwater ponds. Letting grass and ground cover grow a foot tall in the buffer area stabilizes pond banks from erosion—which can be a seriously expensive problem for HOAs. Keep a 10-foot fertilizer-free buffer around all shorelines.
For a bigger impact, follow this guide and plant spike rush, pickerel weed and other colorful native plants along pond borders to absorb nutrients that would otherwise feed algae blooms. Planting a pond shoreline with stabilizing aquatic plants costs a few dollars per linear foot, while restoring an eroded shoreline costs one hundred times more! Vegetated shorelines also provide homes for fish, frogs and turtles, along with foraging and nesting habitat for waterfowl, wading birds, and pollinators.
Trees are the solution to everything! They help protect water by capturing it in their leaf canopy, reducing runoff, and filtering the water that does infiltrate the soil. They stabilize pond and stream banks, keeping sediment from entering storm drains and waterways. They suck up and store carbon dioxide. And they provide shade and oxygen for us and homes for all sorts of wildlife. A well-located mature shade tree near your home can even save up to 20% on cooling costs.
Organize a group of neighbors to plant trees and reforest an open area in your neighborhood. You can create a functional microforest in a plot as small as 1000 square feet.
The i-Tree Design Calculator can estimate the environmental benefits of your tree planting project. Use i-Tree to find your location, input the types and sizes of trees, estimate past or future timespan, then be amazed at how much rainfall, carbon dioxide, and pollutants your mini-forest can capture!
The Florida House is a water-and-energy conserving demonstration house in Sarasota, Florida that showcases water efficient technologies, such as on-site stormwater retention through a combination of infiltration, pervious pavers and rain water cisterns. Location: 4454 South Beneva Road.
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