After a disaster, recovery takes time. TreeFolks is helping communities restore flood-damaged creek and river corridors with native trees, long-term care, and a commitment to the future.
When a landscape changes, a community feels it
When the July 2025 floods moved through Central Texas, they changed more than the land. Human loss was heartfelt around the state, changing families forever, while communities carried overwhelming sorrows.
The floods affected Sandy Creek, Cow Creek, and the San Gabriel River, washing away trees that had shaded homes, held streambanks together, and helped define the places people know by heart. In the months since, many landowners have been living not only with the damage left behind but with the absence of trees that once made their properties feel rooted, familiar, and alive. Through Rooted in Recovery, TreeFolks is helping communities begin restoring those flood-damaged areas with native trees and long-term support.
“Recovery is not only about what was lost. It is also about what a community chooses to grow back together.”
What Marina saw on the ground
As TreeFolks began meeting with landowners affected by the floods, one truth kept surfacing: people were grieving together. Marina Weikel, TreeFolks’ Reforestation and GIS Manager, saw how those conversations opened the door to something more than site planning. “While doing consultations with landowners who were affected during the flood, they mentioned how many trees they lost. At the same time, this allowed them to connect with one another, grieve together, and form a tighter community. They understand how planting these trees will help nature. They will become land stewards together, depending on each other in the long term.”
That spirit now sits at the center of the work ahead. What begins as reforestation can also become shared stewardship. Neighbors who have lived through the same loss begin to imagine the same future. Tree by tree, they are not only restoring land. They are rebuilding connection.
What Rooted in Recovery does
Rooted in Recovery provides post-disaster restoration services at no cost to eligible landowners in Travis, Williamson, and Burnet counties whose riparian areas, streambanks, or floodplain forests were damaged by the floods. Through the program, TreeFolks offers native trees, professional planting services, site assessments, and technical support to help restore healthier, more resilient creek and river corridors. The work is designed to help flood-damaged landscapes recover in ways that can better withstand future extreme weather.
These restored areas do important work over time. Trees along creeks and rivers help stabilize soil, reduce erosion, improve water quality, and create habitat for wildlife. They also help communities protect the natural systems that support them. In this way, Rooted in Recovery is both practical and hopeful. It helps repair what was damaged while investing in a stronger landscape for the years ahead.
TreeFolks is working together with the Hill Country Alliance and is supported by Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.
“In the wake of the flood, neighbors found one another in their grief and are now becoming land stewards side by side.”
A long history of helping nature recover after loss
TreeFolks brings deep experience to this moment. The organization’s work includes reforestation after the 2011 Bastrop County fires and the 2015 Blanco River floods, part of a broader history of helping restore forests after natural disasters in Central Texas. TreeFolks has also engaged thousands of volunteers to plant more than 3 million trees since 1989. That history matters because recovery does not happen all at once. It takes patience, local knowledge, and a commitment to staying with a community after the first shock has passed.
“Planting trees after a disaster is one way we say that healing is still possible, and that these communities are worth investing in for the long term.”
Andrew Smiley, Executive Director of TreeFolks
Through Rooted in Recovery, TreeFolks continues that tradition of helping nature recover after loss while standing beside the people doing the same in their own communities. In time, these trees will offer shade, habitat, stronger streambanks, and a living reminder that recovery can take root.
“Every tree planted through Rooted in Recovery is a promise that healing can take root, and that nature and community can rise together.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Rooted in Recovery?
Rooted in Recovery is TreeFolks’ post-flood reforestation effort. It helps restore creek and river corridors damaged by the July 2025 floods through native tree planting, site assessments, and technical support.
Who can take part?
The program is available to eligible landowners in Travis, Williamson, and Burnet counties whose riparian areas, streambanks, or floodplain forests were damaged by the floods.
What support does TreeFolks provide?
TreeFolks provides native trees, professional planting services, site assessments, and technical support at no cost to participating landowners.
Why does replanting matter after a flood?
Restoring trees along waterways can help stabilize soil, reduce erosion, improve water quality, and rebuild wildlife habitat while supporting healthier, more resilient landscapes over time.
Be Part of the Recovery
To learn more about Rooted in Recovery and how TreeFolks is helping Central Texas communities restore trees lost in the 2025 floods, visit the program page and explore eligibility details. We also invite you to consider contributing to the program in a short or long-term capacity. Visit treefolks.org/recovery to start helping.
Author
Héctor González, Communications Strategy Manager.
