They teach entire college classes on this topic so not sure if anything other than a soil engineering textbook is going to provide what you need :-) But if you Google under "slope stabilization" and/or "erosion control" you should find some decent online sources that will outline the high points for you. Try this to begin: erosion control and slope stabilization.

Low growing, spreading vegetation is your best bet. But you also might need to lay some sort of geotextile inititially to hold things in place until the vegetation grows in and establishes.

Have several soil engineering specialists out for an on-site evaluation.

There are a large number of books about soil erosion and its control ranging from textbooks to long term studies. There are many books that address what caused the dust bowl days of the 1930's as well as newer studies of erosion today.

Your University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service people should be able to help you control any soil erosion you may have.

http://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/map/index.shtml

kimmq is kimmsr.

Second the suggestion to contact Extension.

I'm curious as to why "slope" is in quotations? Are we like talking the cliffs of Dover?

What is DH doing? And can we see a picture of this "slope"?

Maybe you can show us a picture of DH in action on this 'slope'. We won't tell.

Lazy_Gardens -he is removing vegetation ( lawn - more weeds than grass). Really it was already flowing slowly down towards the rear of the property and down through the sand. Now it is moving faster and you can see how the sand has been moved. I actually want a border around the pool enclosure, but graded properly and topped with gravel/rocks.

He wants to put an impermeable layer down underneath the rock/sand/border. I don't think limiting the area that is available to drain water makes sense.

He was removing a thin layer of shredded mulch I put down where I removed an overgrown area of MIL tongue behind the pool. I didn't know when I started that the area was eroding. The MIL tongue and other invasive does need to come out, but I want to have a plan. I don't to rip everything out, leave it and make matters worse.

That sort of thing. I think we are just looking at the problem completely differently. I just want to make sure what we do is the best thing for the property as w whole and doesn't make matters worse. A reference or basic book on the topic might help, or I hoped it would.

We haven't done anything to the slope where it is really a canal bank. Fortunately it is covered in vegetation. It's just much steeper than I had originally thought and there is an area that appears to be sinking right along the edge. It's steeper than our neighbor's slope. I can't help but wonder how much of ours has eroded.

Hard to get an idea of the scale of all this, but how wide is this border where he proposes a plastic liner, vs. how much slope behind it down to where it is well vegetated? If it's a small border it may not matter that much but you're looking at it and not us. You are definitely correct that an impermeable layer will make that water run off instead of soak in.

What is his stated reason for the liner? If it's to keep weeds down, it won't. Soil will blow in between the rocks and weeds can sprout. Most of us here are against plastic and weed cloth as a result. If it's to keep rocks or a border from sinking into the sand, a permeable one like landscape fabric (weed cloth) would separate layers but still allow water to soak through.

It is both for weed control ( which I told him won't work) and he wants the water to shed away from the deck. It would be about 12-18 inches wide by the depth of the pool ( which is medium sized -I can get the length when the weather clears) on both sides. However, the lanai is in the front edge of the pool so it just seems like endlessly limiting the available surface area. I was wondering if grading the sand (with no barrier) beneath the gravel would gently direct the water away from the edge once it is underground.

We don't have a large yard, the pool takes up a little under half the back yard and much of that will become raised begie beds.

The slope is mostly underwater now, but I can get pictures once it drains.

First off.. Oh my that's a cute, happy puppy!

It is a great idea and totally makes sense. The tall grass would invite snakes and etc here, so I wouldn't want to leave it long where we would be, but further away would be fine. The neighbor whose slope is less steel has a section beyond his fence with cut grass, then it just gets long.

I don't really know what happened here before us but there is all this MIL Toungue and some vines. They have shallow roots and I think it has let the sand beneath it shift.

I have been looking into buffalo grass, partly because it has very long roots. I saw it compared to KBG but not St Augustine.

This water is up about half way here. Usually it's just a little creek in the middle of the canal you could jump over. It's almost straight down.

Rear of the deck, it slopes down pretty quickly after this. I would have to measure to get the distance. I think it drops 3 or 4 feet in about 4 feet. I am not a good judge of distance though :). The front corner is almost level with the deck.

Before the vegetation was removed the sand was pretty stable. I want the water to drain perpendicular to the deck and creek into the land which is sand and drains quickly, as opppsed to down the slope toward the water.

Get a professional opinion after an on-site evaluation!

You're risking the stability of your home & property.

Start by contacting the Sarasota County's Extension Service Office as they likely can refer you to, or suggest, reliable resources. (They also know many horror stories of people who did it their way.)

Sarasota County Extension
941-861-9900 http://sarasota.ifas.ufl.edu/

Boy is that sand in that pic? Looks like sugar. Anyway I second the recommendation to get some professional advice. But I agree with you that getting water to drain INTO the soil is preferable to getting it to run off down a slope, especially if the slope itself is steep, highly erodible sand and is already eroding. That's kind of a no-brainer. The mulch is good, it is not only spongy to soak up some of the water and release it slowly, but it also keeps heavy rain from hitting the soil and knocking it downhill one grain at a time.

A picture of the whole slope would be more useful than the bits and pieces you are showing.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jean. This is an engineering issue, not a difference of opinion about gardening, and it directly impacts the safety of your property. You need professional advice based on an on-site evaluation, not a reference book or random opinions on the Internet.

As a random opinion on the Internet, I resemble that remark.

:-P

I would have to get down into that canal with the gators and the who-knows-what to get a picture of the whole slope and *thats* not going to happen. TheSe are the best I could get. I'll call the county on Monday. Hopefully they can assist us. Thank you all.

And yes, we have fine, white "sugar sand" here. It's even more fine at the beach. :) It's lovely there, so at least there's that.

Yeah, you're living in Florida, so things are not so bad. :-D Although we have some nice waterways here in MO, which are gator-free by the way, so I'm not TOO jealous.