Have you noticed the ladybug plaques around the Echo Lake Neighborhood?
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Hello Shoreline! Have you noticed the ladybug plaques around the Echo Lake neighborhood? These decorate homes or businesses that have pledged Lake Safe and Pesticide Free Practices of yard care.
This helps not only Echo Lake, but the environment in all of Shoreline, including our parks and waterways.
Echo Lake is home to otter, osprey, barred owl, turtle, bullfrog, kingfisher, Great Blue Heron, too many migrating water birds to name here, and various species of bat, dragonfly, fish, native water lily and other aquatic plants.
Other than Echo Lake, Shoreline is home to diverse waterways: Boeing Creek, Brugger’s Bog, McAleer Creek, Twin Ponds, Ronald Bog, and the shores of Puget Sound. All these are home to creatures and plants that rely on clean water.
The pledge is simple!
- Use only organic fertilizers, as directed on the package.
- Avoid herbicides and pesticides (such as Weed n Feed, Round Up).
- Display your ladybug plaque somewhere visible.
WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT SYNTHETIC FERTILIZERS?
Synthetic Fertilizers release too quickly. With our big storms they wash into the sewers and dump into our creeks, lakes, wetlands and Puget Sound.
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| Look for this label |
This extra fertilizer contributes to our toxic algae blooms.
Pesticides and Herbicides harm the environment in many ways: they cause health problems in humans and disrupt our ecosystems.
Organic Fertilizers, on the other hand, release slowly and are much less likely to cause excess algae blooms.
DO YOU LIVE IN THE ECHO LAKE WATERSHED? Anyone can take the pledge, but if you live in the Echo Lake Watershed you are eligible to receive a ladybug plaque when you sign a pledge card.
Supplies are limited! You can contact Ann Michel at Friends of Echo Lake, agrmichel@gmail.com, or Christine Lovelace at the City of Shoreline, clovelace@shorelinewa.gov.
SHOW ME THE WATERSHED so I can see if I live there, get a ladybug and spread the good news!
SHOW ME THE WATERSHED so I can see if I live there, get a ladybug and spread the good news!
Echo Lake Watershed
--Ann Michel
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2 comments:
Dear Editor,
It’s a nice report about avoiding toxics when gardening and encouraging good bugs.
And you mentioned several watersheds and Ronald Bog. That is in the Thornton Creek Watershed, the largest watershed in Shoreline and Seattle!
In future, if you’re listing watersheds in Shoreline, please include Thornton Creek.
It is an important salmon habitat!
I'm not in that watershed, but for sure my ditch drains somewhere - maybe to Lower Paramount Park? My lady-bug sign came years ago from a farmer's market. I don't use pesticides or herbicides in my garden and yard, but does putting Frontline for flea control on my dog make me a hypocrite??
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