Riparian Buffer Tree Planting Survival Rates

[KeviR]

In our TU chapter tree plantings we have used small hardware cloth cages around the bases of the tree tubes to keep out voles. This has worked well. Tree tubes are essential because deer are absolutely rampant around here. And hungry, apparently. The tubes are zip tied to an oak post we drive in next to it.
We go back every year or so and maintain the site - straightening tubes that got bent over, remove tubes if the tree is well above the top, etc.
Most of our projects have good survival - I think all were above 50%. One was more like 90%. Most were in flood plain, but generally not wet soil. The one place where we had wet soil, I think that area had poor survival.

 

[troutbert]

In our TU chapter tree plantings we have used small hardware cloth cages around the bases of the tree tubes to keep out voles. This has worked well. Tree tubes are essential because deer are absolutely rampant around here. And hungry, apparently. The tubes are zip tied to an oak post we drive in next to it.
We go back every year or so and maintain the site - straightening tubes that got bent over, remove tubes if the tree is well above the top, etc.
Most of our projects have good survival - I think all were above 50%. One was more like 90%. Most were in flood plain, but generally not wet soil. The one place where we had wet soil, I think that area had poor survival.

How is the hardware cloth installed? How do you prevent the voles from getting under it?

 

[KeviR]

It is cut into a strip about 1' wide and 2' long, then wrapped long ways around the base of the tube snugly and worked down into the soil about 3-5 inches. (So 7-9 inches of cloth are above the soil.) The soil is compacted (just by foot) around the buried cloth.
In theory the voles can tunnel under that depth, but they don't usually.
I forgot to mention, in one project where the site had a lot of grass, we contracted to have it mowed a couple times a season for the first two years. That probably helped too.

 

[Sylvaneous]

Troutbert, I have not run any projects, but have been a long term observer of some individual projects. The worst survival that I saw had to do with the location of the plantings…directly in a spot where strong current occurs when the creek is high. Most got bent to the ground and variously covered with debris. Some survived, however.

The second problem I’ve noticed has been common. The groups plant the trees in too great of a density. Survival is good but eventually a few trees will win the battle for sunlight at the expense of others. Half the density would cover twice the distance.

As for species that I have noticed performing well…tulip poplar and hybrids, river birch, sycamore, willow, redbud. I might have seen pin oak too, but that memory is a bit vague so someone else may want to comment on that species. Additionally, the first four grow quite rapidly.

I am not a big fan of the tubes; they are reported to be bird traps and where strong stream currents occur during flows across the flood plain the currents bend the trees down, pull a lot of the tubes off, and deposit them downstream as plastic litter.

I have not seen any survival problems in agricultural flood plains, some of which were most likely legacy sediment based on the abundance of dams that occurred in these areas.

I got a good deal of blow-back from my critical assessment of the type of rocks used in bank stabilization. Bucking the narrative about established habitat improvement procedures

Sycamores are by far the best...not sure how fas they grow but the best waters all have sycamores along them.

I don't know why some trees are so very dominant along streams and others are not. Sycamores seem dominant on rocky shores, KINDA'..... Seems dominant along Little J bt not so much Penns, but also Oil Creek, which is much different structure. Silver maple are dominant along the Allegheny with black willow and sycamore folllowing up. I'd bet that what works well along bigger waters and REALLY big waters, like the Al, aren't so good for medium/small trout streams.

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

Sycamores seem dominant on rocky shores, KINDA'..... Seems dominant along Little J bt not so much Penns, but also Oil Creek, which is much different structure. Silver maple are dominant along the Allegheny with black willow and sycamore folllowing up. I'd bet that what works well along bigger waters and REALLY big waters, like the Al, aren't so good for medium/small trout streams.

My comments have little to do with riparian buffers (or my lack of knowledge thereof), but I recall the predominant trees in a small suburb of Erie being very large sycamores. (Circa 1965-1975 and I was quite young at the time.) My parents and others couldn't stand how "dirty" they were for an urban setting, shedding bark and seed pods (we called them monkey balls) in addition to very large leaves. When planted between the street and sidewalk, they had such large and shallow roots that every adjacent (concrete) sidewalk section was lifted up - some as high as 6+ inches. We lived pretty closed to a GE factory and papermill at the time and were told that sycamores were the only large trees that could endure that much local air pollution.