The seasonal creek has been flooding badly the past several years. It flows from several high points and the creek runs underneath the driveway through a culvert. This culvert was old, small and a bit crushed. We hired an excavator to clean up the creek area, dig out the old culvert and replace it. We put in a huge culvert.
Here's the problem though. It rained a lot late last fall so his work got put off until early November. He did a great job but now we have blank soil on the creekbed and had no time to get anything planted before the spring melt rushes through. Sigh... it will take more of our soil downstream.
I am investigating a prairie mix for wet areas. Perhaps incorporating a straw mat or even a erosion mat - although I'm not hip about burying a poly-tye of material in the soil. Spring will be interesting.
3 comments:
We have a wetland area on our property with lots of native grasses and wildflowers. It isn't really usable for anything other than wetland but it is beautiful. I need to get better at identifying the different kinds of grasses down there. I'm hoping to add a few more wildflowers. I think the horses that lived here before ate most of them! Good luck with the spring thaw!
Judy
Hi Judy -
Thanks. We are investigating wildflower mixes that are specific to zones and subzones. JFNew carries some great mixes and specially formulates them based on your location. Expensive though...
You could stop a tremendous amount of erosion and filling of your brand new culvert. All you need to do is put bands of large rock/boulders or make bands of soil 12-18 inches high every eight feet or so. If you use soil make sure and compact it. Basically it is the same principle as terracing a hill. You are creating obstacles that make the water slow down. I have also seen people put in wooden snow fence for a temporary easily removable solution but it needs to be reinforced well.
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