Times Observer photos by Brian Ferry Brice Ludwick, (left), digs a hole for a tree during a volunteer planting event Saturday at the Lindell Farm in Lander. Madelyn Ferrie, (center), makes sure a tree she planted at the Lindell Farm is surrounded by dirt and standing straight. Brett Belcher, (right), of the Warren County 4-H Udder Club digs a hole Saturday at the Lindell Farm.

A couple of grants, a landowner, and a bunch of volunteers are helping improve a stream.

Dozens of volunteers spent Saturday morning at the Lindell Farm in Lander planting trees and shrubs.

“We had approximately 45 volunteers from various organizations including 4H Udder Club and 4H Warren County Oxeneers, Boy Scouts, Penn State Extension Master Watershed Stewards, Cornplanter Chapter Trout Unlimited, and the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC),” Warren County Conservation District Watershed Specialist Jean Gomory said. “Project partners included Department of Conservation and Natural Resources — Bureau of Forestry (DCNR), Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS), and Warren County Conservation District (WCCD).”

Dollars for the project came from a DCNR Multi-Functional Riparian Buffer Grant through the Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts (PACD) and funding from the Sandy Cochran Memorial Fund.

“The primary focus of the DCNR Multi-Functional Riparian Buffer Grant is to ‘identify locations in need of riparian forest buffers and to design, establish, monitor, and provide short-term maintenance for those buffers,'” Gomory said. “This program also supports projects that produce multi-functional buffers, a buffer type that provides an opportunity to harvest products such as nuts, berries, woody florals, forbs and potentially woody biomass in addition to the conventional buffer of riparian tree and shrub species.”

Saturday’s planting was the culmination of a lot of legwork.

“We’ve been working on this project for over a year,” DCNR District Forester Taylor Chamberlin said.

The first step was talking to the owner.

NRCS District Conservationist “Laura (Ayers) worked with the landowner to move the fence so the animals can’t get to the stream,” Chamberlin said.

With the stream area starting to recover, it was time to plant a buffer.

“We’re planting 385 plants,” he said. “Native shrubs and tree species, all adapted to growing in wet conditions.”

Tree species planted included red maple, black locust, swamp white oak, sycamore serviceberry, and red oak. The shrubs were silky dogwood, gray dogwood, arrow wood viburnum, black chokecherry, and elderberry.

Those plants will “help reduce erosion and minimize non-point source pollution to an unnamed tributary to Fairbanks Run,” Gomory said.

The plants are in, but the work is not done.

“There will be continual maintenance over the next couple years to make sure these trees get established,” Chamberlin said.