Our front yard is rocky and depleted of any rich soil. It's eroding away with every rain shower.
Does anyone have a good suggestion for a widespread foliage we could try, like clover or thyme? I will take any suggestion! Even weeds if it help retain soil.
by dara_609
27 Comments
Grass and a French drain.
Not without location data.
Your best bet in the short term is a vigorous cover crop like annual rye or winter wheat for immediate stabilization. Additionally, you might want to look at installing a few fiber rolls checks along the swale to help slow the water down, these can be purchased at places like home Depot.
What you do after that depends on how you want to use the space. I’m telling you a thyme lawn here will not suffice.
How tf do people expect to get reasonable advice with a terribly filmed, five second video that barely depicts the issue?
This needs to be addressed by finding where it is coming from and diverted from there .
Foliage will not help you.
Wild strawberry, violets, & Canada wild ginger will do you right.
Holy crap! That’s wild
your yard looks a lot like silver cymbal’s yard. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z33lluiKg9I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z33lluiKg9I)
he’s got a lot of water control videos.
Other things to think about:
Where’s north? How many trees are there? Why isn’t there any grass there right now? How much sun does that get? How much land lies uphill? and where is that water coming from?
Where’s at my yard? I’d buy as many wattles as I needed to hold the dirt on the property until I could come up with a longer term solution. Lowe’s hardware sells them, and you have to look in the darker recesses of the fencing part of the store. Chances are very good even the employees in the garden center will not know what you’re talking about, but keep looking.
Here in California we have a native play site called calscape and you can search by location and select “bank stabilization”. If there is a way to look up that where you live it will make your life easier in multiple ways. Native plants are superior.
I would recommend not going with a lawn here. This would be a good place to do some terracing and gardening. Rain garden type plants: native prairie grasses or wild flowers with deep roots that can stabilize the soil.
You have a river leaving your property. Where is it coming from is your question? Do all of your neighbors put their water thru your yard? Is it jusr your roof? 10 x100 roof = 1000 sq ft. 12 inches rain 1000 cubic ft 7,480 gallons. Figurw out the storm you are drsigning for. Make a water feature, catchment, then let it spill over an overflow to street in a drain. Catchment gives you fee water. Infiltrate. Look at brad Lancaster
Brad Lancaster: Water-Harvesting Basics, Part 1 – Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster https://share.google/cYynhx0HyHwxGRpo5
I mean it will eventually fix itself but scatter some
Clover or grass
You gotta get out of the car in the rain and find out where it’s coming from before you can fix the problem.
You need to slow down that water, or direct it into a channel that can carry it without damage. You will have a devil of a time getting anything to establish without that.
Look into sedges and carex esp in shady areas
Sod if
For a yard carrying this much flow, you should really consider a dedicated swale with waterproofing, rock, etc. Low shrubs and other plants will help hold onto soil but there’s limit with this high of a flow.
Cry more.
That’s seems more than a “shower”
I don’t think the hard stuff gonna come down for a while
Find a few good site contractors to get them to review and provide options. Ideally a civil engineer.. because this looks like it could be rather involved
Heavy planting with some kind of native rush grass, I’d use Lomandra in my part of the world, loves getting knocked over
You can use “highway mix”. Its the stuff they seed on the side of the highway. There is fast acting short term and a slower growing long term mix. You’ll need to stop by a landscaping supplier to get it. Scroll down in the pdf to see actual grass types and chemicals.
https://alabamasoilandwater.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/4-Hydroseeding-101.pdf
You need to better divert the water first.
Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana) would help but they don’t grow very fast; I’d plant many anyway for long term stability but add other fast growing stuff to help right now. Sages grow quite fast and helped us a lot stabilize steep slopes.
Native to you would be the red sage (Salvia coccinea), but non-nativ e non invasie would help as well such as Woodland Sage (Salvia nemorosa), Russian Sage (Salvia yangii or Perovskia atriplicifolia), Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii), Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans).
Other native would do great too american beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), native sedges – [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has a great info on that](https://www.wildflower.org/expert/show.php?id=4273).
If you need to direct/divert the water, a [one rock dam[(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvrp6qRvYbo&ab_channel=QuiviraCoalition) would be appropriate
Plant a tall leafy tree. That’ll block a lot of rain.
Just wait a few weeks and don’t do anything to it some weeds will grow and just leave them. I blows my mind that when you remove the natural foliage that helps with this and people end up with this exact situation…