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

"Rob & Shel"

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.

If the sapplings are on the wall of the dam, then remove them (I
suspect theya rent' but don't ever grow tress on the dam wall)

If the treesa re behind the dam in the dirrection that the water flows
in from then leave 'em and add anything liek old tyres etc that will
catcht he silt flowing in and revegetate with grasses reeds or
anything that you can get to grow.

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!

All sounds OK and should work. Look and no doubt you'll learn what
works as you go along.

Cheers

"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
...
"Rob & Shel"

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.

If the sapplings are on the wall of the dam, then remove them (I
suspect theya rent' but don't ever grow tress on the dam wall)

If the treesa re behind the dam in the dirrection that the water flows
in from then leave 'em and add anything liek old tyres etc that will
catcht he silt flowing in and revegetate with grasses reeds or
anything that you can get to grow.

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!

All sounds OK and should work. Look and no doubt you'll learn what
works as you go along.

If you can get in good with a local quarry or mine site there is a new
grass on the market called vetiver grass, it is sterile and is used in
the control of sediment flow and bank stabalisation in mine sites and
such. otherwise use tussocky grasses and related things such as
lomandra.
Rob & Shel wrote:
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

In article ,
"Rob & Shel" wrote:

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?

Ring Landcare for advice, or other local "green" groups -- Greening Australia,
Australian Plants Society, etc. They should be able to advise you what to
plant.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

Many thanks, Group, for your replies

Rob


"Chookie" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Rob & Shel" wrote:

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?

Ring Landcare for advice, or other local "green" groups -- Greening
Australia,
Australian Plants Society, etc. They should be able to advise you what to
plant.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You
may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

"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.
snip

Be careful with plantings on a dam bank / wall.
Greening Australia are probably the best contacts for advice in Qld .
Here's a starting point: http://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/GA/QLD/
...and here's a link to some of their erosion control info ....
http://www.greeningaustralia.org.au/...Services/Erosi
on+and+sediment+control/
or try: http://tinyurl.com/lwcsy if that link doesn't work.
....but better to ring them and discuss.
I'd suggest sticking to grasses, rushes and ground cover on the bank near
the dam. If it flows to a gully, I'd plant the trees there.

Cheers
Amanda

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

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

G'day,
I've seen councils using bales of hay held in place with pickets
to slow and filter water in floodways.Seems to last for a while. If you have
a lot of bare and eroded ground you try sowing some lucern or wheat seed for
a quick cover.You will loose a lot to the birds at first but just resow over
a period of weeks and you will get a good cover. In the long run you will
need things like Lomandra reed to establish. It's tough as nails and handles
extremes of weather and both wet and dry conditions. Councils are using it
in roundabouts and such, where it seems to survive anything. If you look in
local creek beds it's starting to flower and will soon have heaps of seed
soon, which looks a bit like small rice grains in a orange to red fruit.
Otherwise any local native nursery should have tube stock available at about
$2 each.

China
Wingham
NSW

Thankyou for those tips Meee & China

I'll be off to the Barung Landcare Catchment Nursery soon to collect a few
free trees given out annually to ratepayers of Caloundra Shire, & so can see
what they have to offer.

I hadn't mentioned before that my dam's catchment within my property was
very overgrown with weeds, lots of partially burned trees, bits of wood, &
even some rubbish.
From harvesting the fallen trees for firewood, & slashing weeds there would
have been alot of shavings washed down together with charcoal etc, so it's
no surprise the water was so dirty from the recent deluge.
Anyways, I suspect the horse that was here would have been much more
"impacting" (damaging?) to the water than anything.
I've seen yabbies & long necked turtles already, & I will stock the dam with
native fish which, together with my resident ducks & my future plantings
should make it a busy & healthy ecosystem, I hope.

All the best,
Rob

"China" wrote in message
news
G'day,
I've seen councils using bales of hay held in place with
pickets
to slow and filter water in floodways.Seems to last for a while. If you
have
a lot of bare and eroded ground you try sowing some lucern or wheat seed
for
a quick cover.You will loose a lot to the birds at first but just resow
over
a period of weeks and you will get a good cover. In the long run you will
need things like Lomandra reed to establish. It's tough as nails and
handles
extremes of weather and both wet and dry conditions. Councils are using it
in roundabouts and such, where it seems to survive anything. If you look
in
local creek beds it's starting to flower and will soon have heaps of seed
soon, which looks a bit like small rice grains in a orange to red fruit.
Otherwise any local native nursery should have tube stock available at
about
$2 each.

China
Wingham
NSW

"Rob & Shel" wrote in message

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.

That'd work or old tyres. Old tryes will slow the flow and can be
planted out as they silt up with useful plants. I woulnd't really
recommend bulrushes on the top side of the dam as these sodding
things take over.

"China" wrote in message

I've seen councils using bales of hay held in place with
pickets
to slow and filter water in floodways.Seems to last for a while. If
you have
a lot of bare and eroded ground you try sowing some lucern or wheat
seed for
a quick cover.

Lucerne can be hard to establish as it often needs an innoculant.

In the long run you will
need things like Lomandra reed to establish.

God I hate that stuff. It buggers up good pasture.

"Rob & Shel" wrote in message

I've seen yabbies & long necked turtles already, & I will stock the
dam with
native fish which, together with my resident ducks & my future
plantings
should make it a busy & healthy ecosystem, I hope.

If you have any comrorants in the district, drop an old bed
framecomplete with wire into the middle of the dam before you stock it
with fish. The bed frame and wire gives the fish somewhere to get
away from the cormorants. (And belive me they will probably come if
you stock it with fish).

Many thanks Farm1,

A bed frame sounds really good..... I'll incorporate one into a "jetty
jumping" jetty. Also, I'm planning to make a floating anchored duck island
& house in the middle of the dam.

Rob


"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
...
"Rob & Shel" wrote in message

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.

That'd work or old tyres. Old tryes will slow the flow and can be
planted out as they silt up with useful plants. I woulnd't really
recommend bulrushes on the top side of the dam as these sodding
things take over.