Rachelle Hallberg plants a live stake along a stream in Ritts Park to help with erosion managment. Volunteers from Penn State Extension planted a number of trees and live stakes Friday. The stakes will grow in to small trees and shrubs.

By this time next year, nearly 400 native shrubs and trees that were planted Friday will be growing and helping to stabilize the soil and clean the water at Ritts Park in Butler.

Penn State Extension water resource educators and several volunteers, who took part in a series of Extension webinars to learn about protecting backyard streams from erosion, spent the day using what they discussed and learned.

They planted 300 live stakes of red osier dogwood and buttonbush, and 90 trees including red and sugar maples, shagbark hickory, paw paw, persimmons, swamp white oak, hemlock, white pine and others along the stream that flows through the park.

“We're planting a riparian buffer. It stabilizes the soil, it helps filter out pollution from the road and surrounding area and it helps the soil absorb more water,” said Danielle Rhea, one of the Extension educators. “They provide a lot of water quality benefits.”

Live stakes, which look like sticks, are cut from dormant plants and should be planted before they begin sprouting, Rhea said.“By summer, they'll start to leaf. By this time next year, they will look more like a tree than a stick,” Extension educator Susan Boser, said about the trees.One of the volunteers, Rosa Snyder-Boyd, said she took a webinar to learn how to protect the steam that runs through her farm in Smithton, Westmoreland County, and volunteered for the park planting to get some hands-on experience before doing some planting to protect her stream.“It was a really good webinar. This puts it together,” Snyder-Boyd said. “It's a great opportunity.”Ryan Harr, a watershed resource specialist with the Butler County Conservation District, said riparian buffer plantings like the one at the park can be done on private property through the organizations, but it's difficult to find cooperating landowners.“This is going to be a showcase because it on public ground,” Harr said.The plants stabilize stream banks and filter fertilizers and other pollutants out of groundwater before it reaches streams, he said.When the trees grow, they will shade the stream and keep the water cool, which benefits wildlife, he added.

Penn State Extension educator Justin Mansberger plants a live stake along a stream in Ritts Park to help with erosion managment. Volunteers from planted a number of trees and live stakes Friday. The stakes will grow in to small trees and shrubs.