This bank was washed out by the back-to-back tropical storms in September 2011. Something needs to be planted on the bank and the steam banks to hold the soil.
Above is how the street looked on September 9, 2011. This small tributary of Spring Creek flows through our backyard. Our development is the headwaters for the stream. It never flowed more than a foot deep. But on September 8, it raged high enough to collapse the four foot corrugated culvert and blow right through the street. The water you see in it now is typical for the spring.
The utilities were once underground. These cables carry electricity, Verizon FIOS, Comcast cable and plain old telephone lines. They were live when this picture was taken. Note the curb was still intact, although suspended in mid-air. Kids in the neighborhood dared each other to walk across it.
Here they are close to finishing up. The curbs and some finish grading are still needed here. The picture below is how the bank looked last Saturday before I planted it. The township had put down some straw and wood chips, but erosion had already started.
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| Red-osier dogwood (needs pruning!) |
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| Red-osier dogwood (the red stems) and Virginia sweetspire (the green stems) |
I cut about 100 live stakes Saturday and soaked them in a bucket of rooting hormone overnight.
Sunday, I picked up a 4′ length of 1/2″ rebar from the local Lowes. I planted the live stakes by driving the rebar into the soil about 18″ with my 4# engineer’s hammer, and sticking the live stakes into the resulting hole. If more than about 6″-8″ was sticking out of the ground, I clipped the excess off with my Felcos.
I planted them roughly on 3′-4′ centers, placing the sweetspire along the street and near our backyard. I tied a piece of flagging tape to each stake so I could find them. I also wanted to make sure the township saw them if they came back to do any more work.
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| Looking back toward our backyard. |
I have no doubt that the dogwoods will root. They are very aggressive. We’ll see with the sweetspire…
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| Looking from our backyard across the bank. |
