Weed infested, steep, long slope -- HELP!
cottagegardenfee
8 years ago
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8 years agoRelated Discussions
Help for a Steep Slope?
Comments (7)Where are you in ETN? I'm in Knoxville and my backyard is a steep slope that slopes down away from the house. Well, about 10 feet of the yard used to be level, but over the last eight years it has been sliding down the hill. We had a plumber who also does excavation look at the backyard and he is concerned because some of our plumbing (the sewer clean out) is totally exposed and we've run it over with the lawnmower so much that it broke entirely. He's concerned that other lumbing items are also exposed and that soon we will see a foundation crack! We want to avoid this so we are going to have to have many truckloads of fill brought in, OR we will have to try to get a Hi-Lift in at the base of the hill (that is where the alley is that has all our utilities - water, sewer, electric, phone, everything except gas.) The City refuses to maintain this alley! There are trees that have grown up in it on other people's right-of-way areas that now block equipment from getting through. I'm looking at an expensive fix, methinks. And a LOT of retaining walls! So I too am interested in finding out about erosion control plants. When we moved in we laid black plastic down on the hill for two years to kill the kudzu and other nasty things. It worked - the only thing that survived the lack of water and the 200+ degree temps (it's full sun) was the native Clematis. On the advice of a friend who is a former landscape architect we sowed the hill with Lespedeza, the non-shrub variety, but found that it did not crowd out the weed and tree seeds, so the whole hill has grown up wild with invasives and honey locust (thorn city!) and the Lespedeza did not stop the erosion as promised so we are exasperated at this point. Helpful ideas appreciated! I will take pics when I can. -Regina...See Moretornado aftermath:weeds among periwinkle on large steep hill
Comments (0)A portion of my back yard is a large steep hill, about 150 ft across x 50 ft with about 30-40 degree slope. The previous owners had it nicely landscaped. About the bottom half to two-thirds of the slope is periwinke. Last summer we had a tornado. My house was one of the ones spared, but we had many large trees down, some onto the slope. A host of wonderful volunteers came with chainsaws to help get rid of the fallen trees and debris. To do so, we had to tromp all over the slope and the periwinkle. The bare patches that resulted are filling in with thousands of weeds. the weeds and grasses fill in much faster than the periwinkle spreads. I've spent hours and hours weeding all summer long--taking up all my spare time (of which I have little). The area is far too large to manage, and it's nearly imposible to get mulch onto it because of the steepness. The hill is fast becoming a field of weeds overtaking the periwinkle. Is there any way to help the periwinke spread faster than the weeds? Thanks!...See MoreWeed infested, steep, long slope -- HELP!
Comments (34)I will add, the frequent use of the word "poison" in stone's narrative suggests a less than complete understanding of what the various materials actually are, and what they do. If a specific herbicide has been compounded in such a way as to interfere with one or more enzyme pathways within green, vascular plants, is that a poison? The word poison has an actual and specific meaning. In human terms, a poison is a material which, upon being consumed, causes immediate life-threatening reactions. So, are herbicides which are designed to interfere with one or more essential enzymatic pathways within green, vascular plants poisons? Not to you and me, and not to moss (non-vascular) and not to a mature tree trunk which the material has drifted onto (No green tissue exposure). It is indeed tiring to see the same simple-minded "chemicals are bad" kind of thinking here. So, what about plants which exude allelopathic materials from their root tips? Must they be banished so as not to be poisoning the environment? This is just way too beginner for me. And in support of TR's comments above, you, stone, are putting lots of words in our mouths here. No, you're not the only person on this forum-if you can believe it-that would first seek out the desirable plants in a scenario such as above, for saving before proceeding to do any other work. It must be hard to live your life, knowing as you do that everyone else is an idiot who doesn't know what they're doing. +oM...See MoreHelp killing grass/establishing ground cover on steep slope
Comments (14)NHBabs, thank you for the photo - it's very helpful to see a visual! Let me show you what I'm dealing with as far as the entire yard is concerned: Not sure if it's entirely clear, but the yard is actually comprised of two slopes, divided by a flat area (that old post and beige rock on the far right are in the middle of the flat area, which is about 6-8' wide). Each of the sloped areas is about 10' and the angle is quite steep. The top slope is fairly evenly angled but the bottom one has a sharp drop off about two feet above the retaining wall. This creates a good bit of flat space behind the wall, where I am planning to plant herbs and peppers (the kitchen opens right out to the back to this area, so this will be very convenient). I am going to rip out that bed of pachysandra in the lower left corner and all of the plantings in the center to create as much space as possible for edibles. The elderberries I mentioned on the other thread could maybe go on the flat area, but I am planning to plant a dwarf cherry there, which I think will eventually dominate the area. I think I'm just going to put all of my berries (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry and elderberry) in pots for now, then transplant all but the blueberries once I have a better grasp of the sun patterns, etc. Anyway, I think we might as well just kill all the grass in one go, mulch and then start with the vinca. It sounds like the grass' root system will keep the topsoil in place even when the grass is dead, and hopefully a fine/shreddy mulch will stay put long enough for the vinca to get going. I really appreciate your advice on this technique!...See Moreedlincoln
8 years agoThyme2dig NH Zone 5
8 years agodiggerdee zone 6 CT
8 years agoNHBabs z4b-5a NH
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agomargaretelisabeth
8 years ago
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mad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY)