Salado Creek Foundation

Trees For The Salado

Mar 16, 2001

By: Charles Bartlett

Trees are an important part of our web of life for many reasons, but on the Salado Creek they are especially important because they help improve water quality.

The Salado is on the EPA's 303D list of impaired waterways, and one big problem with our water quality is low levels of dissolved oxygen.

Scientists say that if we had more trees and more shade, we'd have fewer problems with those low levels.

Through the years though a number of trees on the creek have been lost. Whether it is due to human intervention, flooding, age or disease, biologists say lost trees should be replaced...so the Salado Creek Foundation and other civic partners are replanting lost trees such as Black Willow, aging native Pecans and others.

If you would like to add trees to your section of the Salado, you should choose varieties that are disease and insect resistant, not affected by flooding, fast growing, beautifully shaped, long lived and sturdy. Among the trees recommended as resistant to periodic flooding are the following:

Pecan

Live Oak

Bur Oak

Red Oak

Bald Cypress

Montezuma Cypress

One of our first choices is the Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum). It grows well in Texas, is extremely drought tolerant, pest free, much less likely to form "knees" when the roots are submerged, stays green most of the year, grows faster than Bald Cypress, and has survived temperatures as low as zero degrees F.

Best of all, the Montezuma Cypress is extremely long lived (hundreds of years), is a huge, stately tree, is extraordinarily sturdy, and generates little brush or fallen limbs, thus requiring little maintenance. It is truly a tree for the ages, one to plant now and be enjoyed by your grandchildren, and an excellent choice for creekside reforestation.