Dam Maintenance

[Parata]

Hello,

I recently had a small dam built from compacted soil.

Now the weeds are starting to grow all over the banks of the dam. Should I remove the weeds and grow grass instead ?

Aquatic plants of different kinds are also starting to populate the edge of the dam. Is it a good thing or not ?

Lastly, how far tree should be planted from the dam and do trees provide some benefit for the dams.

Cheers,

Parata.

[bazman]

Hello Parata

How big is your dam, just step it out roughly in meters. also how deep it it?

Let the weeds grow, interplant a legume of some sort, get any type of low ground cover on that bare soil. weeds are fine, as they die off they will be replaced by what ever you want to plant, clumping grassed, bamboo maybe.

Don't plant trees on dam walls at all. On the top side of your dam it does not matter so much, it's the dam wall you want to protect from tree roots. It also depends on the trees you plant and how what type of root system they have.

Tree root can travel and while not doing much damage while alive, once the tree dies the root system rots if in contact with water and ends up leaving holes in or under your dam wall. Fixing a dam to be more expensive than rebuilding it.

Have you added any swales or wing drains to your dam? whats the catchment like?

Baz

[gardenlen]

g'day parata,

yep no trees near the wall, they cause lots of busted walls.

you need the water plants to keep the water clean, as you need grasses and plants wher the water runs into the dam to filter out debris etc.,. we let the grasses and antive woody weeds take over on our dam wall that gave stability and gave habitat for the scrub wrens etc.,. didn't look tidy but hey?

we mowed the top of the dam wall and kept the spillway well trimmed. turned a muddy coloured dam inot a clear water dam.

if you have animals then fence the dam off and set up a water trough you might in some cases be able to set up a gavity feed to a floating ball cock water trough.

len

[Parata]

Thanks for the replies,

The dam is really small, it's holding up to 250000 litres although the catchmemt is virtually some 10+ acres. It's roughly 20m x 25m with a max depth of 3m but most dam surface is between 0-1m deep.

It's 12m away from my border line as required by local regulations and I wanted to plant CASUARINA BLACK SHE-OAK along the fence line. The dam wall is parallel to one of the fence line and the she-oak are planted 1.5m within the fence line.

The dam is in its simplest form except that it takes its run-in water from natural water courses where there are already plenty of water bonded plants hence the beginning of the new dam colonisation.

Cheers,

Parata

[Flying Binghi]

we mowed the top of the dam wall and kept the spillway well trimmed. turned a muddy coloured dam inot a clear water dam.

gardenlen, i'm a little confused ? are you suggesting that mowing the wall and bywash will clear the water ?


I've found the quikest way to get clear water is, when building the dam, put a layer of top soil back in the dam as the final trim. Some of my first dams 20 odd years ago built with no top soil finnish are still 'clayed' to look at - maybe 6" of vision thru the water. As a compare, a dam done three years ago with the top soil finnish, looks to have over 3' of view.

Re trees on the wall - grit your teeth and remove early. I have near ten metre high trees on the water side of one dam wall, and i just car'nt bring myself to remove them. No problemo now ?, though as has been pointed out, there will be problems later. All the plants and wildlife that have established on the man made water bounty will be in jeopardy when the dam inevitably lets go due the old roots rotting.