We love these trees and are looking for ideas to make them last as long as possible. Should we build up the shore line? Are some of the limbs on the biggest tree causing too much weight? Help!
by Equivalent-Prune-191
We love these trees and are looking for ideas to make them last as long as possible. Should we build up the shore line? Are some of the limbs on the biggest tree causing too much weight? Help!
by Equivalent-Prune-191
17 Comments
I’m glad you love your trees, but that lake or river loves them more. Enjoy them while you can, they’ve done just fine like that up until now. I wouldn’t touch them and I would just keep soaking in that beautiful view for the years to come.
No not much you can do for trees that form part of a shoreline
Be sure to water them
Save them from the nature?
These are ash and cottonwoods, doing exactly what they are made to do: grow along riparian areas, stabilizing the ground and providing shade for aquatic habitat. They can tolerate inundation— don’t be concerned about how they’re right on the edge or partially in the stream. The one that is leaning may eventually fall, but dead wood in streams is critical habitat for wildlife and contributes to the geomorphology of the stream (i.e. its functional shape). These trees have a lot of life left in them. You can take cuttings from both and stake them into the ground to start developing a younger age cohort to prepare for when the mature trees eventually decline and die.
Plant a garden of native species in the roots with compost, soil, and rocks from that area?
These are some pretty cool riparian tree holes.
I am sure those trees have been in that spot longer than you were alive, if no human tempers with them they’ll be still there after your gone.
Maybe some pool noodles? Water wings? An inner tube? They seem to like hanging out at the lake so just let them have fun. (Don’t actually add floatation devices as that would be littering)
You would need a retaining wall and dirt- an erosion prevention construction project that extends the shoreline back out to where it was. Those contracts are very expensive, some I’ve seen have been 100-300k.
But there is also a lot of info on YouTube for doing your own erosion control. The first step is building out the “toe” of the bank with large rocks, then filling it in with dirt, then planting live stakes and deep rooted ground cover to hold the soil. Adding brush mattresses also helps.
Even doing it yourself can be expensive in terms of the quantity of stone you would need, unless you can get some free concrete waste dumped. Then you would need to have large quantities of dirt dumped, then you would need to source the live stakes and seeds.
I am doing this project on my riverbank and taking my time doing it over a few years. It’s a lot of work.
If you enjoy these trees you should plant more trees to enjoy while letting these ones do their thing
We too will eventually yield to the river. Such is life.
Cottonwood is a notoriously short lived tree that loves to rot out. That thing is in the river already man. Let it go.
They’re fiiiiiinnnnnneeeee
Let them be, then when they fall fish will end up there
They’re fine as is.
Add rock barrier and soil in the roots tie the hanging tree to the others for support