At my house, there’s a cut and fill trail that leads down a hill. I didn’t build it originally, but I’m in the process of doing some repairs. As you can see in the attached pictures, the hill is eroding. I’ve been trying to start some ivy on the hill, but the soil is very sandy, the hill is fairly steep and it drains too well. Any thoughts on how to stabilize this hill; preferably with vegetation……
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Replies
could somebody resize please...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
chain link fence laid flat..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Could you scale these down please. Also, if they were taken at night, get some daytime shots.
Thanks
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one more thing. It's in dense shade........
Are these pictures better?
That's going in the right direction... I waited for the first to load. Kinda dark to see much. What is the slope %? You can measure with a 2x, level, and tape measure.
I've got 130% slopes here with no erosion problems, but that's the natural shape of the mountain. Your stairs, was the slope changed?PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
From the looks of things, the apparent angle of the slope looks well in excess of the "angle of repose" for sandy soil. The angle of repose is the natural angle that can be maintained without gravity doing its thing. The angle for cohesive (clayey) soils is somewhat higher than for sandy soils. In general, anything you do will likely only prolong the inevitable. Stabilization matting is available, this is commonly jute or fine polyethylene mesh, sometimes available with a layer of grass seed glued onto it. This is often used by highway construction companies or DOT's to stabilize fresh embankments, but usually the slope is engineered not to exceed the natural angle for the given soil. If I remember correctly, the approximate angle for sandy soil is about 30 degrees. Anything steeper will eventually slide.
Prolonging the inevitable is exactly what I'm trying to do. I'm not looking for a 50 year fix. As you work your way up that hill, somewhere, it becomes the next door neighbor's property. So, I'm not about to build a retaining wall on someone else's property, not to mention it would be a veritable impossibility to get equipment down there which could get quite costly. I'm just trying to slow the erosion that's taking place.
Vegetation, eh? Couple of bits of info are needed.
1 - Your profile is empty, where do you live (relative area in a state is fine)?2 - Do you know your zone (average winter/summer temp)?3 - What kind of "look" are you going for (I know you want to stabilize it but we might as well shoot for scent, fruit & fall colour<g>)?4 - Do you want forbs, grasses, trees, shrubs...?Full illumination is a good idea when picking up dog poop in the backyard or you will try to pickup a toad. I didn't know I could cling to the cedar shakes that high on the wall of the house. Neither did the dogs.
I'm in Maryland. I'm not going for a look, just anything that slows the erosion. Probably looking for some kind of ground cover that walks the line between fast spreading and invasive. Last but not least, the area is heavily shaded and county regs don't permit removing the trees that block the sun. (not that I'd want to)
On other areas on the property, Ivy has helped stabilize steep slopes, but on this one, between the drainage and the erosion, I'm having a hard time keeping it alive long enough to root.
No sweat.
One vine that would help is Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). It's a native, not as nasty as Kudzu or poison ivy and will grow in full shade (berries for the birds & turns red in the fall). Nice thing is even tho it will climb trees (main trunk only), it also roots in the ground while it "creeps".
View ImageFull illumination is a good idea when picking up dog poop in the backyard or you will try to pickup a toad. I didn't know I could cling to the cedar shakes that high on the wall of the house. Neither did the dogs.
Around here, when the highway dept creates a new, tall steep ridge/slope like that, they use some kind of burlap blanket that already has grass seeds in it, to cover the entire slope. Sometimes they cover that with straw, but most often they then spray it with some kind of green liquid fertilizer. Makes the hillside look green, even before the grass takes root.You might want to try the same sort of thing with ivy or somesuch.You also might try staking down old carpet. Either large pieces, or strips. You should find all you need in dumpsters behind carpet stores.I have actually done this before. Staked carpet securely to a steep slope, over grass seed. The grass did eventually make it's way through the carpet.
A friend is a person that knows everything about you and still likes you.
I'd suggest perhaps some of the more vigorous Lamium (dead nettle) or Ajuga (bugleweed) species. Also check into Vinca and Pachysandra, and wild strawberry.
Hell, plant some of each, and see what does best. : )
Jason
Aim for 150 KB or less for posting pictures, but I managed to sip half a cup of coffee while waiting - I needed a break anyways. Never would have even thought of trying to see the originals.I was going to suggest the fact the trees and shrubbery normally have roots that hold against erosion better than vines and grasses, but I see you already have trees that are making too much shade for grass to grow anyhow, and the trees themselves are leaning, if the photos are showing things correctly. So if it is so steep, the trees themselves can't hold it, then the whole slope is moving and the trail cut into it is doing more harm than anything. In such a steepslope situation, it is netter to have a stair built on posts sunk deeply than to cut it in like that. Myself - I would not want to be digging a post into something that steep in sandy soil - good way to end up conducting my own burial service.
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Be still my heart! Is that a Sassafras seedling that I see?!!?Full illumination is a good idea when picking up dog poop in the backyard or you will try to pickup a toad. I didn't know I could cling to the cedar shakes that high on the wall of the house. Neither did the dogs.
Not a hill situation, but the materials used for the retaining wall are what you want.
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=91581.1
Look thru the pics to see the retaining walls. Note a slight backing into the hill with them. Each block has a 1" lip on the backside that fits over the one below to form a locking system that will drain. The blocks themselves are 12"deep.
What you're gonna want to do is dig along side of the steps into the hill deep enough and start building these up to grade.
I got mine thru Best Block in Madison Heights, MI. They are called Anchor Blocks Highland Stone. A number of different ceement block companies about the country are sub-licensed to produce this design.
Check your local block companies for one that produces these or similar ones.
Here's the details from Anchor:
http://www.anchorblock.com/Products/Products_Detail.asp?ProdID=5
"What you're gonna want to do is dig along side of the steps into the hill deep enough and start building these up to grade."How deep is deep enough pete? I don't see those as retaining wall adequate when the whole hillside is moving
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T'were me? I'd go at least 3'. But one probably wouldn't have to go that far. These blocks will move with the hill - if the whole thing is bulging or sliding.
These are the same blocks you see the road crews make those 40 to 50 feet high retaining walls along hillsides. Those applications have geotextiles every 3 to 4 ft imbedded back into the hill.
In all cases, one would put landscape fabric behind the block to keep the soil from dribbling out thru the cracks. They drain themselves - to a point. Depending upon application, tiles may be needed.
I'm told that going higher than 3' requires consideration of many things beyond this post. Therefore, most inspectors would require a engineers stamp or report above that.
In my application, it wasn't even close to being an issue due to the well drained sand sub soil.
Whatever the case, I believe the OP will be better served by these. He can always take them out and replace or reset them if needed.
The geotextile explains some in my thinking.How heavy is a blco9k?I was impressed with your project. That sandy soil is the only way you could get away with such a hole back there. Wouldn't work most places.
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The blocks weigh about 75 to 80 pounds each. That link to anchor block gets into the sizes and weights there.
The sand is the only thing that was able to make that project work. The potential for water retention is big. But they don't even require footing drains there. The guys here wouldn't give me much encouragement about getting circular gutters formed to run under the deck, either.
One of the biggest problems I ran into was excavating so much that the footings of the original house were exposed and no longer fit the definition of being deep enough for frost protection. Which in that micro-climate, surprisingly is only 24". 20 miles away, it would be 42".
But we did two things. 1. dug down in 10' stretches vertically along the footing 16" from the footings top. Then placed 2" thick foam boards vertically so as to frost protect the footings, backfilled and compacted. Then ran another strip over the footings, overlapping the first. This was covered with 6" of soil and cc. 2. We will spray foam the inside of the understructure prior to finishing off the interior as a workshop. The BI says he will be happy with that.
I risk a hijacking alert here, but I can see the low frost depth with the sand. It would have to hold onto water for frost to be of any consequence. No water means no frost expansion or heaving.I lived in a town in CO that was build next to the Colorado River and the sand/gravel base there was 60-80 feet deep. We didn't need perimeter drains there either.
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Well, plantlust coverd the important questions.
Since the hill is not "natural," it will be an on-going conflict between keeping it as is, and the way nature "wants" it to be.
So, until the neighbor and you both agree to a single solution, the best that you can hope for is a certain amount of status quo. Which is tough, the neighbor looses a little bit of 'his' hilltop; but it's into your yard the loss falls.
What was needed when the hill was shaped was to have layered geotech fabric in the lifts of soil material that went in. That fabric could have then been brough over the face of the slope and plants encouraged to settle into it.
You could lay in some geotech fabric (not landscaping fabric, we want things to grow through this), and "staple" it in with loads of bamboo skewers, but, at some point you will have to get to the top of the hill, and you'll be in the neighbor's yard again.
Ok, so maybe you do work it out with the neightbor, no problem; plant more ivy (suitable to your region/zone), and miracle-gro the whole shebang often.
If your zone allows, you might look into bamboo to plant on the hill, and plant right up the hill in 5-6 elevations.
Ok, that last is a bit of a dodge on my part, I'm still guessing that this will need some sort of pallisade/retention wall to say as is, and maybe the bamboo would grow in enough to suit.
How about Kudzu? Does it grow that far up. We've got lots of it down here just north of me in Georgia. You can have it all.
Hostas (cast iron plants tell you something) grow in the shade.