A Garden Fit for Lake Champlain

There’s something special about stumbling upon a well-curated garden, and an even more powerful feeling when that garden is not only beautiful but also supports the health of Lake Champlain. If you find yourself in Swanton, stop by the town beach to see the recently installed rain garden. Completed in October 2025 by Friends of Northern Lake Champlain, in partnership with the Village of Swanton, this project was made possible through a Lake Champlain Basin Program Design and Implementation Enhancement Grant.

For many homeowners, gardening is an intrinsically motivated activity — something we do for the personal joy and satisfaction it brings. There’s a quiet pride that comes after a summer of tending plants, basking in the color, and seeing the landscape flourish. While we might occasionally think about how our gardens benefit the broader environment, we mostly enjoy the simple pleasures they bring to our own properties, or so we thought.

But what if we began to view gardening as extrinsically motivated — something that benefits not just ourselves, but our communities and ecosystems as well? The Swanton Beach Rain Garden delivers this idea. It’s a nature-based solution integrated into the developed shoreline of Lake Champlain. What now appears as a young swale planted with dogwood, buttonbush, and serviceberry will, by summer 2026, grow into a vibrant, thriving landscape. The garden is designed to capture runoff from the parking lot and allow it to infiltrate into the soil. Follow the garden from right to left, and you’ll find a small outlet directing excess water to a shallow grassy area, where it can slowly soak into the ground, preventing it from flowing directly into the lake.

This is the rain garden’s greater purpose: to protect Lake Champlain by capturing and filtering stormwater while creating an inviting, aesthetically pleasing entrance to Swanton Beach.

Work at the site isn’t finished yet. In 2026 or 2027, FNLC plans to install an educational sign designed to spark curiosity and inspire community members to rethink their own gardens, shifting from intrinsically to extrinsically motivated activity. The sign will help visitors understand how the rain garden functions and how gardening can be both beautiful and beneficial to the broader environment.

Thank you to our funder, the Lake Champlain Basin Program, and the Northeast Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission for supporting this work.

https://www.lcbp.org/

https://neiwpcc.org/