Recreating a Suburban Dry Creek to Control Rainwater Runoff.

June 27, 2022

#448

Gentle reader,

It has been a month and a half since I have written for you. Mainly because we are transitioning from acquiring things to getting rid of them so that our adult children will not have so much to deal with when we are gone.

While we both still collect, we are much more cognizant of finding room for new things by removing older ones.

That being said, this article has nothing to do with collecting, unless one counts rocks and stones.

A note on photographs within this blog. If you click or tap on any, they will enlarge to make it easier to see details. THIS photo is a panorama made from three photos taken from one location. As a result, the dry creek appears to curve, which it does not in reality.

Let me start with photos of our backyard after a heavy rain with the original iteration of the dry creek.

As you can see, the dry creek was quite a bit narrower than the new version seen in the panorama photo above.

It has two trees in the middle of it, the one above has since died, so we cut it down and removed the stump. There is vegetation growing in the creek as well. This was not anticipated by us. Rain washed soil and silt down the hill into the creek as well as pollen, leaves and other tree debris settled between the rocks and stones. Plus, there was nothing to keep the water from leaving the bed of the creek.

That metal structure had supported a fabric and screen tent-like enclosure which we had sat inside, enjoying the weather and our pond. The pond was gone by the time these photos were made. Note how deep the water is over the flat stones.

Note, also, how the water flows towards the fences and makes a right turn, following the contours of the land.

It exits the backyard to the left of the tall grass and flows down the driveway to the gutter.

I have since found a better place to store the ladder. It was left by renters next door and the owner offered it to me. It's a long and heavy ladder, much stronger and taller than the one we already owned.

The pond we had installed was surrounded and fed by a huge number of stones we had purchased as well as all of the large ones which were found for us by our sons. 

When we removed the pond and filled the hole back up, we had a LOT of rocks/stones piled up which gave me the initial idea to make a dry creek. The metal structure was also removed and the metal recycled.

The willow tree seen here, to the right of the "deckette" was a Corkscrew Willow we grew from a cutting. Since it did not "know" it was not still a branch, it grew to "weep". Sadly, removing the pond was the death knell of that little tree.

Looking up the dry creek from next to the deckette. Note how many rocks/stones are piled upon others, just as they do in real rivers and creeks.

While we did put weed blocking fabric down before we put the thousands of rocks and stones down, as previously stated, Nature did it's thing, determined to fill the gaps between the rocks so that plants could grow.

The tall tree in the creek bed above and below, is also a Corkscrew Willow. Sadly, something killed it, ending many years of enjoying it's beauty.

Above is another panorama photo, taken from a different angle, showing most of the creek and the garden Nancy decided to put in the middle of the yard. 

This fisheye photo, taken during the rain, from the Listening Room's window, shows the stark difference from the one above it. You can just see the stump of the willow in the creek. Our largest oak tree which was part of a copse of woods left by the developers in 1987, had died. 

It was HUGE and the tree surgeons recommended taking down the Tulip Poplar next to it since they are fragile trees. The only good that came from that is the Giant Sequoia now receives much more sunlight that was blocked by the willow.

Another fisheye lens photograph of the new fabric in place. I was not going to let nature try and cover it up this time!

A couple years ago, I painstakingly removed, by hand, EVERY ONE of the thousands of river rocks and stones, placing them all on the deckette. Vowing to redo the creek and make it better. We did not keep track of how many 50 pound bags of river rocks we bought to make the creek. But it was a lot of them. 

Finally, I was determined that 2022 was going to be the year to do just that. Armed with 100 feet of quality and wider weed block fabric, I removed the old fabric and all the debris that had settled on it. I first had to remove all of the large granite and quartz rocks which bordered the creek. I laid out the new fabric, starting with the 48" wide roll at the bottom end of the creek. I employed more than 100 fabric "staples" designed to hold in place this type of fabric.

These three photos, taken with an 18mm lens from the deck, are the ones which were merged to make the panorama photo at the beginning of the article.

I bought twenty 50 pound bags of Sacrete quick setting concrete mix and had them delivered. That's 1000 pounds. We knew it was not going to be enough, but had to start somewhere.

This photo shows how far thirteen bags and many hundreds of stones covered. This time, I put the concrete mix between all the border rocks to discourage inflow of silt from the hill and keep the water in the creek. Also, larger river rocks were cemented in front of the large rocks to further deter the water. Note how many stones remained on the deckette after we finished. We were afraid we might run out since the creek is so much wider than before.

We took both our cars to Lowes and bought twelve more fifty pound bags of concrete mix, another six hundred pounds total. It took nine bags to make it to the neighbor's fence. For a total of 1,350 pounds of concrete, PLUS the weight of the countless rocks and stones. This creek is not going anywhere!

Nancy was now home for the weekend and anxious to help me finish the creek. She is QUITE the hard worker! Without her invaluable help, I might not yet be finished. Note, how much wider the creek is that the previous version.

To my surprise, we had some large rocks left over, so the grouping seen here, covers the bare earth where the willow stump had been.

Try and wrap your mind around this. EVERY SINGLE ROCK AND STONE you see in these photos was HAND SET into the concrete mix, one-by-one! Whew!

Unlike the previous version, there is only ONE layer of river rocks. Each pressed into the concrete mix which was around an inch and a half to two inches deep.

I deliberately left this area open because I need a path to get the lawnmower from the lower portion of the lawn to the "upper forty" as I call it.

We had previously built this "wall" to capture the silt from the hill.

As the huge pile of thousands of rocks and stones lay upon the deckette for a few years, Nature continued to drop dust, sticks, leaves, pollen and other things which formed soil between and beneath the rocks. We found one ant colony and a number of large earth worms which really were enjoying living there. We relocated the worms to the grass. This debris had to be removed, by hand, from all of the thousands of rocks on the deckette!

We have three bags of concrete mix left over. I am going to make a "sifter" out of steel screen with 1/4" square holes in a wooden frame over the wheelbarrow. I will carefully pour the concrete mix bags over the screen to remove the small rocks. Then, using a lawn seeder spread the remaining 150 pounds over the the bed to fill in between the rocks and stones. That's the plan anyway.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. It is is prime example of how putting off things one knows are going to be a lot of work can complicate that work with things that would not have been present had the work be done sooner rather than later.

Scott & Nancy Robb

June 27, 2022

#448