Muddy Creek Riparian Plantings

[Maurice]

Muddy Creek Trout Unlimited has through it committment toward coldwater conservation pledged over $10,000.00 in labor and plant material to install a riparian buffer along 4,000 feet of stream on the North Branch of Muddy Creek in Felton Boro. We will be onsite on Saturday Mornings on March 20th, 27th, April 10th and April 17th. Beginning at 9:00 am and meeting at the Felton Post Office.

If you are interested in helping with this worthwhile project, contact me via PM for more details.

 

[Maurice]

Update! 3/20/2010

13 volunteers, 100+ trees, 150+ shrubs, 100+ treetubes installed. Ages ranged from 5yrs old to 75 years old. (5 year old tied surveyors ribbon onto shrubs while her mom staged the tree tubes.) Help of all ages welcome and appreciated. To be continued....

 

[JackM]

Wow! Very nice job. I noticed a "1st stage" floodplain in the area the trees are planted as in the second picture. Does the creek occasionally flood onto that first plateau area?

 

[Maurice]

What you are calling 1st stage is known as a flood plain bench. It is designed for flood storage during approximately 35yr flood events. (in this watershed about 3-5" of rain in an hour). Last week we had had 3" over night and the creek raised filling about half of that bench. Straw had to be reinstalled and reseeded.

Keep in mind that the flood plain area planted prior to the project was at the level of the slope to the right. All that excess material was graded back and removed from the flood plain allowing for the flood storage.

 

[troutbert]

Maurice, what kind of trees did you plant? And from past experience, have you noticed that certain species have survived better than others?

 

[Maurice]

Well they are all native to the peidmont plateau.

Green ash
Red oak
white oak
pin oak
sycamore
tulip poplar
hackberry
red maple
paper birch

there are certainly plenty of black willow and black walnut on site so we typically try to get a variety that "likes their feet wet" and that are suited for loamy soils.

for shrubs we do lots of live staking from black willow and silky dogwoods, red ozier dogwoods. We maintain a plant nursery on our co-op grounds to rear plants that we donate toward projects to keep costs down. We start oaks and hickory from seed.

Some other shrubs in this plan are
Cranberry viburnum
arrowwood viburnum
winterberry holly
button bush
spice bush

 

[troutbert]

I hope they grow well. If so you can come back some years from now and feel good about planting them.

We planted some along Spring Creek about 15 years ago and some of the trees are pretty big now. They can grow fast in riparian areas. About 2 feet a year in some cases.

 

[Acristickid]

Hope I see some nice bushes and trees flourishing along side the creek when I stop by in a few years.

Still picking the dirt out from under my nails.

Nice meeting you Steve and Fritz.

 

[Stevie-B]

It was a pleasure meeting you, Paul. I see you made it home safe.

I think Maurice will be talking about my son for some time.

 

[Acristickid]

"I think Maurice will be talking about my son for some time."

Walking the walk and talking the talk for sure.

 

[crs5942]

Good choices on the riparian plantings. When I researched East Branch Codorus Creek (which is not far from Muddy Creek) I found that the native floodplain was full of dogwood and alder shrubs, wild grapes, willows, and a sporadic oak. Additionally, there were lots of sedges and rushes.

 

[Maurice]

Stevie-B wrote:
It was a pleasure meeting you, Paul. I see you made it home safe.

I think Maurice will be talking about my son for some time.

Steve,

I am not sure I got your sons name.....I will certainly remember him as he will me. Are you sure you don't have that the other way around. I love to get into controversial conversations with kids who think their parents are gonna "make them dead". It was priceless to have him in the front seat of my daughters 1991 ford f-150 with one shoe off and full of mud and his leg muddy up to his knee. He was stressin' but I told him if his daddy gave him andy guff, to send him my way and I would straighten him out. :-D

You on the other hand.....(what was on that other hand BTW).....had your hands fuller than your daughters diaper.

I appreciate your coming out to help, we made great progress. Thanks to folks like you and Paul and Bud who made cameo appearances for a worthwhile project.

 

[Acristickid]

MO, or anyone else- can you provide any recent photo's of the plantings?

I am interested to see if any of the plants having taken root.

Tanks.

 

[Maurice]

No recent photos but the plants are thriving. If I get down there in the next few days I will bring back an update.