LEAVENWORTH — About 1,800 native trees and shrubs were planted along Icicle Creek over the weekend to give a helping hand to fish.

The work was done on Pat and Gloria Fromm’s farm, which was homesteaded by Pat Fromm’s great-grandparents in 1886 and has been in the family ever since.

“We’re just happy to help,” Gloria Fromm said.

The family has voluntarily agreed to stop mowing their farm along several hundred feet of the shoreline and will allow the construction of a fence to keep their livestock out of the creek.

“The banks have been eroding away over the years,” she said. “So this work will definitely help.”

The Chelan County Natural Resources Department and Chelan-Douglas Land Trust teamed up on the project, along with help from Icicle Valley Trout Unlimited and other community volunteers.

“One of the things that we’re trying to do is convert agriculture land back to a more native condition along streambanks,” said Neal Hedges, stewardship coordinator for the Land Trust. The idea is to reduce erosion into the creek and reduce water temperatures with shade trees and shrubs.

The Fromm farm and the neighboring Leavenworth Golf Course are two of the largest landowners along the lower stretches of Icicle Creek. Restoration work was done on Golf Course property several years ago, and the county has been touching up some of that earlier work this fall.

The work is now being extended to the Fromm property.

Hedges said the farm has been grazed by cattle and planted in hay for years. As part of the restoration project, a fence will be built 50 feet from the water’s edge and the buffer will be planted in native vegetation.

Over the weekend, volunteers planted about 1,800 cottonwood, water birch, willow and ponderosa pine trees, along with red osier dogwood, Douglas Hawthorne, wood’s rose and snowberry shrubs.

Later in the winter, they also will plant hundreds of dormant cottonwood cuttings along the high-water mark of the creek.

The Fromms will continue to grow hay and alfalfa and raise livestock on the remainder of their farm.

Michelle McNiel: 664-7152

mcniel@wenatcheeworld.com