Near the bottom of my driveway, the hillside is starting to sag (probably from all the rain we got last week):
Near the bottom of my driveway, the hillside is starting to sag (probably from all the rain we got last week):
Near the bottom of my driveway, the hillside is starting to sag (probably from all the rain we got last week):
Yes, probably from the rain, but the lack of vegetation tells me it was most likely placed this year and is just settling. I see lots of small stones. Is all the material like that? If so, then water will easily drain out without taking material with it.
The contour near the curbing seems to have the fill material mounding up so water will be retained near the curbing. This is bad. You need to find someway to drain any water in there. Use 4" perforated pipe to move the water to the end of the fill and let it run off the fill material.
You will need to rake fill material back into the cracks. Then plant shrubbery so the roots will hold the fill material.
Lots can be done.
Paul
I wonder if wooden snow fence would do any good. Example here
You could plant kudzu. ^_^
Plant some oak trees, their root systems will help stabilize the soil. :)
Just another hazard of "view property"... bummer :(
Why are accountants so amazingly cheap & stupid? Based on my experience (limited data sample, though) this seems to be nearly axiomatic.
Pay a soils engineer or grading contractor to come have a look.
Give this a try
A bit here on the topic and solutions.
How far down the gully does the land fill go? Is the water draining off the driveway onto the new fill? If so reroute it away from the fill. If water is collecting at the top of the fill, dig a swale to drain it away. Possibly a tarp covering the area will keep water out until you can stabilize it. The slope looks to be a 1 to 1 (45 degree) slope, making it unstable, it really should be a 1 to 3 slope and compacted.
Research deep rooted vegetation and arrange to get a lot of it planted as soon as possible after correcting some of the problems with the hill.
The Landslide Handbook?A Guide to Understanding Landslides By Lynn M. Highland, United States Geological Survey, and Peter Bobrowsky, Geological Survey of Canada
Maybe that's not so good advice if this web site is correct.
Old erosion ideas that don't work.
GRASS.
Planting grass on a slope does not stop erosion. Erosion studies have consistently shown that slopes that were seeded with grass have GREATER EROSION than anything other than bare ground. (Even dead sticks beat grass!). Just because the world is full of ignoramuses, you do not have to do what they do. Don't seed slopes with grass. This ignorance of seeding grass on slopes to control erosion has been perpetuated for about
100 years and still occurs after fires in some poorly educated sectors of our country. EVERY study that has ever been done recommends against seeding grasses. After spending a day trying at the Cal Poly library to find an article supporting the seeding of grass to control erosion I could find none. One of former biologists for Forest Service(she quit over this) spent 10 hours at the UC Santa Barbara library trying to find documentation for seeding grasses, she could find none. Seeding slopes after a fire or grading does nothing but destroy the ecosystem for perpetuity. Bare, grass-covered or ice plant-covered slopes commonly load up to field capacity (and beyond), while slopes covered with a mix of native shrubs and trees and perennials rarely do(Patric). In a home landscaping seeding with grass makes a weedy slope that is very hard to stabilize and reestablish plants on and it creates a different plant community, ie. Weeds. Mulch.The type of mulch, placed on top of the ground, is very important in the management of a slope susceptible to erosion. See the mulch page for appropriate types of mulch to use. If you use the wrong type of mulch the plants will not grow very well, weeds could be introduced, and erosion could be increased! Plastic.
Plastic is for bags, soda bottles, and children's toys. If you stuck those items on the hillside they would be about as attractive and effective for erosion control. (After a few years the plastic 'weed barrier', 'mulch' or 'erosion matting' has curled and is sticking up in amongst the weeds.) I removed some of this stuff off of a 'restoration project' (in a shady spot) near San Luis Obispo a few years ago. The ground was practically bald (nothing much was alive) after 2 years, except a little annual rye grass. Next to the plastic, there was near- normal recovery. In other places where this plastic matting was used (sunny spots) the weeds had gone crazy. Short term solution that is a long term pain. Straw.(Straw punch, Straw mats)
Straw is for animal bedding. On slopes it works for about 15 minutes during the first rainfall. Then the hillside is a weedy, muddy mess and the straw is somewhere else. Also, you have just introduced a massive amount of weed seeds. As with grass, the erosion is greater with straw than mulch, plants, boulders, walls or anything other than loose dirt. If you like erosion, fire, gophers and mice, put straw around your house. Straw=weeds= rodents=erosion. This straw blanket slid off of the this slope with the first good rain - grid24_12 Straw is for horse bedding, not erosion control or slope landscaping. A straw blanket/mat slope before the rain. jute doesn't do much for bank stabilization - grid24_12 Straw mat hillside sliding away after a few light rainfalls. Should have been terraced with cross drains, mulched and planted. Concrete.
Malibu uses concrete as 'erosion' control. Weird! The coastal sage scrub is beautiful and stable. Some dummy clears the 'brush' and plants grass, the hillside slides, so they cover it with cement that gradually cracks, costs a fortune, looks UGLY, and is dead. And after about twenty years, the concrete falls off of the slope. Also if the water doesn't go into your soil, it's running on to the neighbors slopes and causing more problems downslope. Ice plant, 'red apple', and grasses like Red fescue,
They all behave the same way in a wet year. These plants are not appropriate to control erosion on a slope because 1) they are alien plants and not part of our natural plant community, 2) they have very shallow roots. 3) they are heavy. The slopes load up with rain water to full saturation and then shed/slide off. The top vegetation actually ADDS to the weight of the slope. It feels just like a wet shag carpet, and the roots are about as deep. I wish the news people would get it right; it usually isn't mud slides, it's ice plant or 'grassland' slides.
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