English Ivy can be very invasive in some areas. I suspect those who questioned how good it is for erosion control were thinking of areas where it out competed something better Many experts say grass...particularly American Beach Grass and perennial Beach Grass...is the best sort of plant for erosion control. Vines are often good for erosion control. I'm fond Trumpet Vine but others consider it too aggressive. Plants that are adapted to grow on beaches are good for erosion control...eg. Virginia Rose, Bearberry, Jersey Tea etc. Lowbush Blueberry is decent for erosion control, and is often found naturally on cliffs. Why do you think plants die there? What is your soil like? Wet or dry? Clay or sand?

this is new jersey, as in northeast coast US near new York. I'm doing work at someone's house. Their goal initially was to just have a no-mow no water or fertilizer lawn. Then I or they pointed out how some of these no mow/water/fertilizer covers can be flowering type things instead of just grass and they liked that idea better. So we set out to find something like that online in seeds or plugs but I didn't really find anything at first. I just recently found a lot of those things are on ebay cheap seeds and should be started indoors over winter and planted in spring instead of planted now in Fall like grass seeds. At first, we kind of scrapped the idea of a flowering cover because they wanted to do the whole lawn with it but don't want it to spread to the neighbors' lawn especially underground and popping up. So we decided to just do a no-mow type lawn like Pearls Premium http://www.pearlspremium.com/ But considering the cost of the no-mow lawn seeds and not using chemical starter fertilizer or crabgrass preventers, it's a gamble to try and plant and hope it doesn't just turn to crabgrass. I have organic fertilizer but it's no where near high in phosphorus to develop good roots quickly like regular starter fertilizer, Organic starter fertilizer I can only find online believe it or not. Instead of doing the whole yard with something like Pearls Premium, It would probably cost them less for me to just till large landscape beds throughout the property and then get seeds off ebay of things like flowering ground cover (that doesn't spread underground like crazy) and things like creeping juniper etc. I'm open for suggestions on thing like this. Once these things are established, they need zero water and zero mowing and maybe a sprinkle of organic fertilizer every few years. They will need a pruning every few years but that's like an hour of work maybe. At the beginning, yes the newly planted landscape beds will have to be de-weeded well until the plants establish and thicken it up. We're leaving about a 8 foot border space from the property line that will just remain how it is now which is basically weeds with some turf grass mixed in. A no-mow lawn still needs to be cut maybe 3 times a year, so these 10' borders will have to be mowed anyway if they're left how they are or if regular grass or no-mow grass is planted there. Once the landscape beds are thriving, they can decide to plant regular or no-mow grass in the border areas. I can do that now since it's the right time instead of waiting until next Fall but we want to see how the landscape beds go first. I can probably just scalp mow the weedy border areas and that will really retard growth there so that omits the whole having to plant grass there but the yard will still look nice because of the landscape beds. Get the idea now? It's about making a nice yard with minimal mowing, watering, fertilizing, and the cost is very low thanks to ebay seeds. perennial ground cover flowering: http://www.pbcgov.com/newsroom/1211/_images/ground_covers_tibouchina.jpg http://img.diynetwork.com/DIY/2014/03/07/CI-Stepables_Groundcover-wooly-thyme_h_lg.jpg creeping juniper: http://s45.photobucket.com/user/mishmosh2000/media/misc/Oot_Picture-7.jpg.html etc

Thanks again! Wow, 30--you must have a large garden! We are on a 3-acre lot on a lake though only about 3/4 acre of garden beds. And I could use a new ground cover. Now to find the perfect spot!! I also just added my zone and place which I thought was there, but disappeared. As you can see, I'm from Canada and Garden Visions doesn't ship here....However, I've heard my Prime Minister is going to the White House for a state dinner this week. I wonder if I could convince him to add that to the agenda:) Cheers! -Dina

Try this: pachysandra seed. FWIW, growing most groundcovers from seed and especially woody stemmed evergreen types like pachy, is seldom as successful as planting plugs or small starts. They take considerable time to amount to a viable plant and you will need to be diligent in keeping any weeds or grasses away while they are growing on. How large an area are you considering?