TEXAS \u2014 More than half of the vegetation along the Guadalupe River was destroyed in last July\u2019s flood. The Hill Country Alliance is leading the charge to restore the greenery in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working with landowners literally since July Fourth,\u201d said Daniel Oppenheimer, Hill Country Alliance\u2019s program director. \u201cIt\u2019s not only about healing ourselves, healing our communities, but healing the river, and we think those processes can and should and do go hand in hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
To continue healing the riverbanks, the Hill Country Alliance identified 230 locals with flood-impacted land. The group then gave them plants to revive naked spaces near the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cNative grasses and sedges that they\u2019re going to take home to plant on their riverbanks,\u201d said Oppenheimer, “to help stabilize the banks and protect the river and help with flood recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oppenheimer said this is the first of many plant giveaways aimed at improving the health of the river, which is an important step in flood recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got what\u2019s called a white-top sedge, which has a beautiful white flower,\u201d Oppenheimer said. \u201cSome bushy blue-stem grasses.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are going to get to be significant size just in 60 days, so don\u2019t laugh at them,\u201d said retired wildlife biologist Steve Nelle.<\/p>\n
The chosen landowners are learning how to enhance the riparian zone along the river\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will need to be planted directly at the water\u2019s edge to be able to keep them in contact with the water,\u201d said Ryan McGillicuddy with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.<\/p>\n
With support from partners like the Community Foundation, San Antonio Botanical Garden and Texas Parks and Wildlife, the plants came at no cost to residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the next year, these things should really help stabilize the banks and also start to germinate, spread seed down river and really help with the overall flood recovery,\u201d Oppenheimer said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 More than half of the vegetation along the Guadalupe River was destroyed in last July\u2019s flood.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[21023,3564,132,134,133,3565,102,138,223,82,27,1659,1569,835],"class_list":["post-347828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-amber-hughes","tag-app-community","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-community-news","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-floods","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}