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An Actual Dry Stream Bed (in the Woods)

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Posted by Jugglerguy z4-5 MI (My Page) on
Sun, Oct 16, 05 at 19:09

I was squirrel hunting the other day on a friend's land and ran across a dry stream bed at the bottom of a ravine. Since I'm continually seeing people here and on TV trying to create dry stream beds in their lawns, I thought I'd post some pictures for inspiration. These pictures were taken this fall in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan. There was a little standing water in some spots, but no flowing water.

Here is a link that might be useful: More Pictures

Follow-Up Postings:

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RE: An Actual Dry Stream Bed (in the Woods)

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Jugglerguy, Thanks for sharing your excellent safari photos of the elusive North American Dry Stream Bed. ;-) What an excellent collection of Nature's blueprints to follow!
P.S. Were any squirrels harmed in the shooting of this film?

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RE: An Actual Dry Stream Bed (in the Woods)

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Unfortunately, no squirrels were harmed. I didn't bring a gun (or see a squirrel) the day I took the pictures.

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RE: An Actual Dry Stream Bed (in the Woods)

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Jugglerguy - thanks

Now we need to ask some questions of everyone on the forum.

1) Would you like this stream bed in your yard? Why or Why not?

2) What makes it look natural?

A better understanding will help move it to your back yard.

I've been working on some dry stream beds and one thing I decided is that they need some logs going across them. I see this being very prominent in these pictures.

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RE: An Actual Dry Stream Bed (in the Woods)

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I asked myself some of the same questions while in the woods. Some of my observations probably can't be easily made by looking at the pictures. I hadn't really considered the logs, but here's what I did come up with:

There is a lot of moss on the rocks.

The dry stream bed is at the bottom of a ravine. There are hills on both sides of the stream.

The trees changed drastically around the stream. The woods in the area had oaks, maples, poplar, beech, balsam fir, etc. Around the dry stream bed it was a cedar swamp.

There were very few small plants except a few ferns.

Would I want this in my yard? Not really. I don't really have a good spot to put a stream bed. If I did, I'd like the rock part, but not the surrounding plants (or lack of). I'd rather have a stream with water and more plants.

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RE: An Actual Dry Stream Bed (in the Woods)

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As a added note if you live in a wildfire prone area, dry stream beds on your property makes a great fire break. Our landscape at work was developed as a outdoor classroom and one thing we put in was a dry stream bed. Your pictures here are inspirational, I love the naturl look of it. Hard to get that look when man made. Thank you for showing, reminds me of home.

  
 

 

 


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