These (there are two and this is is the one closest to the wetlands) are old
gullies. All that drains into it now is overflow water from these intermittent
lentic wetlands I have been building using organic gardening techniques on an
old clay mine. I believe the original cause is long gone, since I don't think
the gullies have changed significantly in the past 10 years. That's where
the leaves came in. They were not suitable for the regular wetlands. I didn't
open the bags, but I did not want to mulch them at the wetlands. It rained
since I last put the leaves in, so I will check and see how much the leaves
have been disturbed, when I plant more. Black walnuts and sweet gum trees
also have big seeds. Dumping them all in one place probably eliminates
germination. I plan to put newspaper over the catalpa leaves and then more
leaves. I do have some carved out stumps and logs that will go on top with
soil in them. I will put the dams in where the water has moved the leaves.

I have dug up all sorts of stuff from my garden at home, lots of spiderwort,
European tansy, horsetails that got out of hand, lots of artemesia, and queen
of the prairie (all chosen because I have too much) so I will be planting them
as well at the edges. I will stack some newspapers here and there underneath
as well to soak up water. I think I could even put some cardboard boxes
filled with junk mail in underneath with maybe some bricks or rocks to hold
them in place.