18 Dec Live stake plantings along Fern Hollow Creek
UpstreamPgh recently partnered with Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc. to plant over 1,000 native tree and shrub live stakes in the Fern Hollow Valley. With funding from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, and a lot of help from volunteers, UpstreamPgh held workdays in November where volunteers learned to collect, prune, and plant approximately 450 live stakes. Then in December, UpstreamPgh and volunteers planted roughly 800 live stakes purchased from Ernst Seeds.
What’s a live stake?
Live stakes are limbs cut from specific tree and shrub species which can propagate by branch in the ground! In the first year they spend much of their energy growing out their roots, this helps with stabilizing the stream bank and increasing the water absorption potential of the stream and surrounding wetlands.
What’s growing?
We’ve planted black willow, silky willow, pussy willow, red osier dogwood, arrowwood viburnum, nannyberry viburnum, elderberry, buttonbush, ninebark, and a few others. These are all native species which will create habitat for local pollinators, insects, and birds!