Villager Nursery had been involved in planning, constructing, and planting restoration projects for decades and we could all see the severe and destructive impacts that commercial rafting was having on the water quality, plant life, animal life and the overall health of the Truckee River ecosystem as a result. Jim Plehn, a long time riverside resident (in the stretch so heavily impacted by thousands of careless rafters above River Ranch) and his friend Alice Berg, a USFS Ranger, with help from many Villager Nursery staff, put together a plan for and implemented the first Truckee River Restoration Day in 1996. We expected maybe 80-100 people and some 300+ arrived to help. It was organized through and staged out of Villager Nursery for many years before the Watershed Acronym was handed the reigns. We used 100’s of bags of locally collected (and dropped-off at the nursery) pine needles to restore the gravel roadbase parking area (next to the Dairy Barns across the street) bacdk to a healthy sage scrub with trees. MANY incredible projects were constructed in the early years on the Truckee River and many tributaries with volunteer help from a huge number of local contractors like Jim Schmidt and with t-shirts and funding from Patagonia and many, many others.
These are a couple of interesting and fun resources for homeowners with riparian habitats. Simple solutions with natural and readily available resources.
How to Plant Willows and Cottonwoods for Riparian Restoration
J. Chris Hoag, Wetland Plant Ecologist USDA-NRCS Plant Materials Center, Aberdeen, Idaho
How to Plant Willows
The Practical Streambank Bioengineering Guide
User’s Guide for Natural Streambank Stabilization Techniques in the Arid and Semi-arid Great Basin and Intermountain West
Gary Bentrup, Landscape Architect and J. Chris Hoag, Wetland Plant Ecologist
USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service
The Practical Streambank Bioengineering Guide
The WILLOWBANK Guide to Riverbank Restoration & Repair
The WILLOWBANK Guide
© WILLOWBANK 1998 – WILLOWBANK Erosion & Conservation Services
