Trees?

Look at the rest of the trees along the bank. silver maples, sycamore, cotton wood are typical river bank trees

Good luck

Black Willows grow to 30 feet, and do better in group plantings.

You might also consider Bald Cypress trees as they are fast growing & look great.

the best root system for the bank erosion is the Sycamore trees...... .........turkey scout

I wouldn't say that sycamores are slow growing, maybe not as fast as a silver maple or cottonwood but certainly faster than an oak.

As far as messy-I'd rather have sycamore seedballs than cottonwood fluff, silver maple helicopters or sweetgum balls ....plus swamp oak acorns are not small either.

AND yes bald cypress would also make a good wet site tree-however if your wanting shade they may not satisfy that need but for a summertime screen or wind break they would do well. You just have to remember that they are a deciduous evergreen and will be bare during the winter.

I would stay away from ash trees, even though the green ash is listed for wet sites, because of the EAB (and that's not earn a buck either ;D )

River banks are full of all types of big trees. I would just find a sapling or ten someplace and transplant it/them. No way I'd buy any of these trees listed. Get a good shovel and some burlap or blanket and dig a rootball big enough to keep dirt on the roots but small enough to man handle and move a few trees to the desired location. slide the blanket around the ball so when you are moving it the dirt doesnt fall off.

If they are growing there already chances are you will have success. I've transplanted trees from 6" to 6' tall. The big one were almost too much for me to move around but they all survived. Plenty of water after the transplant.

Actually I wouldn't even worry about the dirt falling off the root system. If getting a larger root system means loosing some dirt that's not a bad trade off. Roots can easily take not having dirt on them for a few hours if you can keep them from drying out-a covering of wet burlap does wonders until the tree can be replanted.

There's even been some research done( by Dr Bonnie Appleton I believe)that advocates removing all the soil from any balled and burlapped (B&B) tree so that girdling roots can be indentified and removed, and also to help in finding the root flare so that the tree can be planted at the proper depth.

A majority of the B&B trees that we've planted on the PU campus need to have sometimes half or more of the soil ball removed to get down to the root flare that has been buried during tree nursery tillage operations and planting schemes....finding the root flare invaribly exposes much of the root system which we prune as necessary and then cover with the planting soil.

Most trees, when they are started at the tree nursery, are also shipped in bare root (saves a bunch on shipping) and have no problems getting roots re-established when planted.

So I'd rather see a couple of 2'-4' bare roots kept with a small tree then see a smaller root system because you tried to keep the soil around it-just make sure you dig the planting hole wide enough to put those roots back in the ground without trying to circle or J-hook them in the hole or you've just created a girdling root that will eventually weaken, damage or kill the tree.

Watch how you use that term "tree hugger"

...but yes I have hugged a few trees ;D ;D