IMO ask at your local nursery for local natives; the bulrushes sound like a
great idea, and I've seen ti-trees and small gum trees used effectively to
secure the outer banks. Ti-trees are also pretty tough, and birds love them.
Make sure they are small, swamp or creek varieties as you don't want
anything too big; a large tree might blow down in a storm and take half your
dam wall with it. Glad you found your bird....
"Rob & Shel" wrote in message
...
Some of you might remember my question a while back asking about
vetetating an eroded dam bank.

Well, yesterday there was a severe bit of weather. I'm pretty sure it
rained a
little over 2" in a period of about no more than half an hour, & the dam
water level was up by 1ft in a matter of a few hours at most.

It was interesting to see the dynamics of the water flowing into my
dam....I
was out there trying to find my pet cockatiel as he was out there in his
cage when the severe weather hit, as the cage was blown over...birdy gone!

The property is a little over 4 acres. Roughly rectangular shape, rising
from the front about 20ft to the back which might be about 200metres
length.
A meandering gully on one side leading to the dam with various sub
gullies/tributaries or branches leading to the main gully.
There are some small trees scattered on the gully side tho most of the
block
is grassed over for the former livestock owners.
Also, the horse that was on the block, it would have compacted &
generally
disturbed or churned things up around the dam right up to the water's
edge.

I was guessing that the fairly impermeable soils around the dam were
contributing to the silting of the water as the lack of vegetation on it
would mean that heavy rain would run very fast straight into the dam,
straight down the bank scouring anything on its way.
Although there's been a drought, a little rain of recent meant I could
harvest some grass slashings..I layered them in areas around the top of
the
banks. .....this has shown to be reasonably successful.

However the gully water was really flowing quite fast into the dam
dragging
loose leaf litter & small sticks etc. I figure this gully needs small
filtering walls of rocks.

I'm not so keen (even tho there is some in place) on the old natural fibre
carpet underlay being used on the banks as I guess it wouldn't allow the
soil to breathe so well & also wouldn't rot down so quick to provide
growing
media.

I'm not sure how much relatively natural impermeable soil there is around
the dam, but I'm guessing it's bentonite clay for the man-made dam wall
across the gully & to line the "reservoir" bowl.
The soil in the area seems pretty good "growing soil" to a depth of at
least
12" as far as I've seen. I haven't yet dug a hole to see what's really
down
there.
The soil in the vicinity of the dam is rock hard claylike soil which I'm
thinking must be the bentonite.

On the other side of the dam wall, continuing from where the water would
naturally flow is a natural swamp with bulrushes, swamp hens, finches etc
etc....very beautiful. The water there is fairly clean & clear compared
to
the man-made reservoir's muddy look.
It's quite obvious what the dam needs, & hope I can coax some bulrushes to
grow into the bentonite. Certainly more grass slashings & big sticks
around
the banks, & if possible on the steep bank sides are "the go". The loose
rock walls to filter & slow the water streaming into the dam.

The cockatiel had taken shelter in a big nearby tree. Took maybe an hour
of coaxing, & a few "fly-by's" till the bird was near enough for it to
walk
down to me where I was waiting at the top of a ladder. Lucky!

Rob


"Rob & Shel" wrote in message
...
Hi there,

Not long moved out from the hustle & bustle of the Sunshine Coast strip
to
acreage near Conondale near Maleny.

There's a dam with a steep clay bank that's eroded by rainfall. There
are
some tiny native sapling trees struggling along.
I want to help these saplings along, stop the erosion (as it silts into
the dam), & try beautify the bank with further plantings.

Any ideas what I could do?

So far, I've put down some old wool carpet underlay & pinned it in place
with
thin el-cheapo tent pegs.
Further ideas:
To obtain more of this sort of natural fibre covering & cover the rest of
the bank where needed. Of course, having holes in the covering for the
saplings to grow.
Place mangled long sticks, & stake those in place rather like avalanche
prone areas.
Any long grass slashing; the clippings placed on the sticks.
Chuck any muddy dredging (mainly from the "estuary" part as it's boggy
with leaves & sticks) on the stick grass mix.
Cross my fingers, & hope it works!

Does this sound like it'd work? Any other ideas?

Rob