China Lake Live Stake Workshops
China, Maine – Through a series of live staking workshops, China Lake residents learned how to plant native shoreline vegetation and received take-home bundles to help expand shoreline protection.
Ecological Instincts helped coordinate two live staking workshops in 2025 to inform landowners about simple, cost-effective, and locally-sourced bio-stabilization techniques to help prevent shoreline erosion. The workshops were held at two private properties on the shoreline of China Lake as a part of a larger two-year US EPA Section 319(h) grant project.
Workshop attendees learned how to harvest and plant native live stakes. A total of five different species of native shrubs were planted on steep banks along the shoreline, including nannyberry, meadowsweet, pussy willow, red-osier dogwood and silky dogwood. Attendees not only helped plant live stakes, but also received their own bundles of live stakes to take home with them.
The workshops were led by staff at the Maine Nonpoint Source Training Center in partnership with Ecological Instincts, the China Lake Association, and the Kennebec County Soil & Water Conservation District. Funding for the workshops was made possible in part by a US EPA Section 319(h) Watershed Restoration grant.