Shade Your Stream: How a North Carolina Creek Turned Into a Classroom

On a Friday in March, it wasn’t fish or salamanders splashing in the waters of Cane Creek near Asheville, North Carolina. March 22 saw the waterway busy with students, teachers and community partners, working to restore habitat along an impaired waterway listed under the Clean Water Act. Defenders of Wildlife allied with FernLeaf Community Charter School to bring 5th and 9th graders out for a day of invasive species removal and new native plant restoration. This work was powered by grant funding from the Tennessee River Basin Network’s Shade Your Stream program.  

Students kicked off the day by identifying and removing invasive plants, alongside parents, FernLeaf educators, Defenders staff and Conservation Management Institute biologist Morgan Harris. Kids competed in a friendly scavenger hunt for a prize, all while marking as many non-native plant species along the creek for removal as possible. Non-native plants like multiflora rose, Japanese honeysuckle and Chinese privet grow very quickly and outcompete native plants for space and nutrients. They dominated the site and needed to go.

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Emily Moreno/FernLeaf Community Charter School

Rooted in Teamwork 

Armed with identification cards created by 9th graders following a training last fall, participants scouted the area where native species would be planted, and marked non-native plants with brightly colored ribbon. After a session on tool and work area safety, the large group split into two teams, each led by an adult and a 9th grader.    

The first team removed marked invasive species with pruners, loppers, saws and a weed wrench — a tool that can pull entire shrubs out of the ground by the root! Debris was cleared to make room for the new plants. Because conditions were wet and the threat of rain loomed, the task of painting herbicide onto the remaining stumps and stems by trained adults was reserved for another time. 

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Emily Moreno/FernLeaf Community Charter School

Meanwhile, the second team planted native streamside vegetation chosen for its ability to hold soil in place and prevent erosion, provide nutrition for animals and people, and shade the waterway to keep the water cool. Most of these plants were live stakes — inexpensive shrub and tree cuttings that can quickly take root. By the end of the day, participants planted 700 live stakes, including 150 ninebark, 200 elderberry and 200 silky dogwood shrubs; and 150 black willow trees!  

To secure the live stakes, volunteers hammered 2-foot rebar rods into the creek bank at a 45-degree angle, forming deep holes, and pounded the live stakes in with rubber mallets. These stakes will form a tight network of roots to secure the banks and keep sediment from eroding into the creek, where it can harm aquatic life. 

In addition to the live stakes, volunteers planted 10 pawpaw trees and two American hazelnut shrubs, as well as medicinal plants including golden groundsel and yellowroot. Both plants can spread to become groundcovers. These plants were placed farther up the bank and on level ground.    

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Emily Moreno/FernLeaf Community Charter School

What We Learned Today 

Students, parents and faculty at Cane Creek’s natural classroom learned about exotic plants that threaten native biodiversity, and how to remove them safely and effectively. They also learned about native plants that should be in the ecosystem and what makes them beneficial and desirable. Along the way, students learned about local ecology, as well as teamwork and basic landscaping skills that will serve them in years to come. 

The Cane Creek restoration effort doesn’t end with students splashing in the creek that Friday in March. Shade Your Stream funding has allowed FernLeaf to acquire science and monitoring equipment for students to measure their impacts over time and help maintain the health of the creek’s riparian buffer. Their work will combine with other restoration projects planned by Henderson County and Defenders’ partners at the French Broad River Partnership, respectively. The work comes together for a common vision for Cane Creek: a fresh waterway, once listed on the Clean Water Act’s “impaired” stream list, now made healthy and teeming with native flora and fauna.