MAY 2025

In this edition:

• You’re invited: CLWA's Annual Meeting is June 24 at FLCC
• The lake needs you: We know you have something to offer!
• Meet a lake-friendly business in action: Learn how you can make a difference
• Why does weather matter? Do you have a weather station? Also, Citizen Science updates
• What’s in the lake? Exploring microscopic levels
• Partner in action: Willow cutting and planting
• Plant natives this spring: A great list for your plantings!
• Register today: Upcoming lake-friendly living events

Are you a CLWA Member? Join or renew today!

Joining the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association is a meaningful way to protect and preserve one of the Finger Lakes region’s most vital resources. Your membership supports water quality, sustainable practices, and solutions to environmental challenges. Stay informed, connect with a community of stewards, and help ensure the lake’s health and beauty for generations. Together, we can make a lasting impact!  

Mark Your Calendars for the CLWA Annual Meeting on June 24th

CLWA’s Annual Meeting will be held Tuesday, June 24th, at 5:30 PM at Finger Lakes Community College. 

Join us to: 

• Approve our slate of officers and new members for the Board of Directors
• Approve 2024 annual meeting minutes
• Review our 2024 financial report 
• Celebrate our 2024 Stewardship Award recipients
• Enjoy light snacks and beverages

We count on our members’ attending to ensure we meet a quorum required to vote in our new slate of officers and board members. This is also a wonderful time to connect with fellow watershed community members. More information on the event and registration is coming soon.

The Lake Needs YOU!

Who can hear what Canandaigua Lake is telling us? We know you care, are invested in the Chosen Spot, and can bring value to our cause.

As a member-supported, community-based association, we rely on passionate volunteers who want to be part of the solution in combating threats to clean water. CLWA is looking for people with professional experience in the following areas to round out our Board of Directors: 

• Accounting / Treasurer
• Environmental Sciences (Limnology, Ecology, Aquatic Biology)
• Human Resources
• Legal - Environmental, NYS Non-Profit

To find out more about all our volunteer programs and to fill our a volunteer form visit our webpage here. To learn more about our Board of Directors, please email nominating committee chair, lynn@canandaigualakeassoc.org. We hope to hear from you and work with you soon! 

Golden Hour Flowers: Lake-Friendly Living Business in Action



Photos and article by Sam Cromwell, owner of Golden Hour Flowers

Golden Hour Flowers is a small scale flower farm and sustainable floral design business based in Middlesex, NY. They grow a mix of annuals, perennials, and premium flowers such as dahlias and peonies just two miles from Vine Valley Beach. Established in 2024, owner Samantha Cromwell decided to turn her garden hobby and love for flowers into a second career. After 12 years of working in health care, she wanted to give back to the world in a different way as a farmer-florist with an emphasis on sustainability and building community. Being so close to Canandaigua Lake, Samantha felt it important that they farm with respect to the watershed. Through regenerative farming practices, they work with the land instead of against it. These practices include methods such as no-till farming, rainwater collection and run-off reduction through rain barrels, composting, cover-cropping and crop diversity. 

You can find their flowers at their new farm stand, “The Sunny Shack”, through seasonal bouquet subscriptions, and at weddings and events. Samantha will also be teaching cut-flower classes this summer at New York Kitchen. You can find them online on Facebook and Instagram @golden.hour.flowers where on the third Thursday of each month, they share educational information on protecting the watershed in collaboration with CLWA. 

Golden Hour Flowers not only works hard to protect the earth, but to spread the beauty of it and to share the joy of flowers with their community. Find out more at www.goldenhourflowersflx.com. 

Thank you so much to Sam at Golden Hour Flowers for implementing sustainable practices on her property! Remember, no matter where you live in the watershed you have the potential to impact the health of the lake because it all runs downhill! To learn other ways you can live "lake- friendly" and to take the pledge, visit our Lake Friendly Living page on our website linked below. Join the hundreds who have already pledged to be lake-friendly. 

Why Does Weather Matter to CLWA? 

Weather affects water quality; heavy rains, strong winds, polluted creeks and ditches all move “undesirables” into and around the lake. Having access to station data helps us determine when additional sampling may be prudent as storm conditions can vary dramatically from one area of the watershed to another.

Do you have a weather station? 

If you do and are willing to share your weather information with the Citizen Science Committee, please reach out (call the office at 585-394-5030 or email info@canandaigualakeassoc.org). If you are considering a purchase, a few of our members have Ambient stations, found here.

Photos by Lynn Klotz on 6/12/23

The Citizen Science Committee (CSC) is BUSY fine-tuning our 2025 Water Quality monitoring and data collection programs:

• C-HABs - confirm nearly 70 Shoreline Volunteer Monitors - please complete this survey by 5/3 IF you haven’t already linked here.
• Define gaps in shoreline monitoring and/or at public access points around the lake
• Finding a few additional volunteers willing to drive samples to Geneva (late August - September)
• Securing a large gift for a new piece of equipment, enabling us to expand our stream sampling, collecting new base-line and storm event data to better understand what enters the lake and from where 
• Continuing our annual participation in NYS CSLAP and Secchi Disk programs along with our own lake foam reporting, temperature at depth, and specific conductivity data collection efforts

What’s in the Lake: Exploring the Microscopic Level

In December 2024, CLWA citizen science volunteers wrapped up a three-year lake study with Dr. Greg Boyer of SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry. Volunteers collected water samples at six specific locations on the lake every week on the same day and time and also during bloom events. Images of the samples were then photographed using an ioLight microscope and sent to SUNY- ESF for analysis along with the water samples for chemical analysis. 

The goal of this specific project was to study cyanobacteria blooms (toxic and non-toxic) in Canandaigua Lake, but at the same time a lot of other amazing microscopic organisms were captured. One citizen science volunteer who participated in this study proposed that we continue to sample and capture microscopic images of life in the lake beginning this spring. CLWA agreed this is a great idea.

Many of the volunteers who participated in this study have graciously agreed to continue taking water samples and detecting what cool things they can find living in the lake throughout the year. We look forward to sharing the images that they continue to find. Above you will see some of the first images found.

A huge THANK YOU goes out to all the participants in this initial study, led by Sally Napolitano, with Neil Atkins, Lynn Thurston, Elaine Messina, Cindy Mellen-Smith and Steve Zumbo, for your time and dedication to helping us study the lake. Thank you to Lynn, Elaine, Cindy and Steve who will continue to sample and share images this year.

Partner in Action: Willow Cutting and Planting

Lindsay McMillan of CLWC cutting willow branches at Outhouse Park in Canandaigua

Kevin Olvany, CLWC Watershed Manager and Lindsay McMillan, Watershed Technician with willow cuttings

Willow cutting ready for streamside planting at Gage Gully

CLWA Acting Director Lindsey Ayers helped one of our partners prepare for a shoreline planting by cutting willow branches from Outhouse Park in Canandaigua. She joined Kevin Olvany, Watershed Manager, and Lindsay McMillan, Watershed Technician, of the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Council (CLWC). This site was planted with willows many years ago by the CLWC to help protect Sucker Brook, one of the inlets that feeds into Canandaigua Lake at the north end of the lake. These well-established willows along Sucker Brook have been cut many times over the years and used at project sites to help stabilize stream banks and reduce erosion. The willows establish quickly and continue to thrive—truly the gift that keeps on giving.

This particular cutting was preparation for replanting along the streamside of Gage Gully on the east side of Canandaigua Lake, an area that has had significant flooding and damage during past storm events. In 2024, work was performed by CLWC in partnership with the Towns of Gorham and Canandaigua to stabilize 205 feet of stream bank. This project site will now benefit from these new willow plantings to establish vegetation. The staff at Canandaigua Boatworks did the plantings—a true partnership all around.  

These are effective projects that CLWC and other partners are doing to help preserve and protect the lake from nutrient and pollution deposits.

Photo of Gage Gully on the east side of Canandaigua Lake where willow planting took place on the streambank

This image shows flooding at Gage Gully that the willow streamside planting will help prevent over time

Plant Natives this Spring: Here's a great list for you

Article and Photos by Laurie Broccolo

Laurie Broccolo, is a trustee of the Saunders Finger Lakes Museum and started the B-Friendly Farm in Fairport NY to educate the public about native plantings. Please consider replacing ornamental/non-native plants with those shared below!

Packera aurea, also known as senecio aurea or golden ragwort grows in full sun to full shade, like wet soils and is deer resistant. This early pollinator attracting bloomer brightens up your spring garden with large yellow daisy shape flowers on 2' sturdy stems. It also makes a great evergreen ground cover with large oval leaves.

Asclepias incarnata ‘Swamp milkweed’ is a fragrant pink summer blooming perennial that thrives in sunny wet soils and survives through the dry summer climate. It is deer and rabbit resistant, attracts tiny native bees and is the host to monarch butterfly caterpillars. The texture from the unique seed pods add interest through the winter. Every garden should have at least one.

Packera aurea or senecio aurea, golden ragwort

Asclepias incarnata, swamp milkweed

Asclepias tuberosa, butterfly weed

If your soil is too dry because the rain runs down the slope then plant the Asclepias tuberosa commonly called ‘Butterfly weed’. This tall plant with bright orange flowers does not like wet roots and has all the other characteristics of the milkweed. Find a spot in your yard for both of these important plants.

Pyncantheum ‘Mountain mint’ has been named pollinator plant of the year by numerous organizations. It should be called the Party Pollinator Plant because this is the place to be if you are looking for nectar. Beneficial wasps, tiny hover flies, native bees, all flock to this prolific bloomer from July to Sept. It is deer and rabbit resistant. Loves moisture but will tolerate some drought and grows in sun or part shade. Plant this where it can naturalize. The seed heads are attractive in winter and to the birds.

Zizia “Golden Alexanders’ look like yellow Queen Anne’s Lace. They are a true American Beauty native plant that pollinators need as they bloom early spring when others haven’t started yet, and continue through mid-summer. These dainty flowers are great for cutting flowers and easy to grow in wet or dry soil. The songbirds will enjoy the seeds.

Extend your season with native Panicum Switchgrass which not only provide seeds for the birds, are an early summer bloomer for tiny pollinators, are deer and rabbit resistant and provide interesting texture through the winter. This plant will grow in the shade or sun and tolerate wet and dry soils. There are many cultivars to choose from 3’-5’ and bronze to blue or marron foliage and intricate ornamental fluffy seed heads.

Pyncantheum, mountain mint

Panicum, switchgrass

Other plants shown below are good buffers at the bottom of slopes near lake and stream banks.

Native spice bush, (partial shade, wet but well drained conditions)

Tradescantia, spiderwort (sun, wet conditions)

Cephalanthus Occidentalis, button bush (shrub, wet conditions)

Upcoming Events

Join the Canandaigua Rotary and the Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association for a friendly trash clean up competition with cash prizes! Backyard Compost Kit awarded to the team with the most trash collected!

THE DETAILS:

• 10:00-10:30 AM, check in at Central on Main
• Bring gloves, grabber sticks, sensible shoes, five gallon buckets for refuse, reusable water bottle
• Collection area of your choice in the City district
• Form teams of two: one bag for trash, one for recycling
• Food Waste Bonus: Bring a bucket of food waste from home-counts as a bag of trash or pick up from local Restaurant
• Large items may count as one bag
• Collect items between 10:30 AM and 12:00 PM
• 12:00-1:00 PM, return bags to Central on Main
• Gather for group picture
• Prize for the most collected
• Ontario County composting display
• Snacks will be available

CONTACTS FOR THE EVENT:

Jodi Kaufman, Canandaigua Rotary Green Team Chair

randjk@frontiernet.net or 585-396-0486

Lindsey Ayers, Canandaigua Lake Watershed Association

layers@canandaigualakeassoc.org or 585-747-8278

Rain Barrel Workshop Presented by Ontario County SWCD

Join us for a Rain Barrel Workshop presented by Alaina Robarge of Ontario County Soil and Water Conservation District (OCSWCD) to learn about the importance of managing stormwater and the benefits of using rain barrels at your home.

Installing a rain barrel is an easy way to protect our environment and save money. A rain barrel collects & stores rainwater from your roof that would otherwise be lost to runoff & diverted to storm drains or streams. The water from your barrel can be used for watering gardens and lawns, cleaning outdoor furniture, and the list goes on.

Cost for the workshop is $30 for your 55 gallon rain barrel

Space is limited so register today!

Lawns to Landscapes

The CLWA and The Wood Library are happy to co-host this seminar for ways you can protect the watershed with plants. The Wood Library is installing a demonstration rain garden and we invite you to an inspiring evening to learn more.

About the Presenter:

Laurie Broccolo celebrates 35 years as a business owner and has almost 50 years of experience and education to share with you. As a 1978 graduate of FLCC’s conservation and horticulture programs, Laurie is a recognized leader in environmental landscaping and is the 1st recipient of Cornell’s Excellence in IPM (integrated pest management). She is helping other business and homeowners to transition from lawns to landscapes with native plants for a healthier environment. Laurie is a trustee of the Saunders Finger Lakes Museum which celebrates the region’s cultural history and natural assets.

Summer Adventure Awaits: CLWA’s Water & Wildlife Camp

Visit www.canandaigualakeassoc.org for more information

and be sure to follow us on social!