How to Control Erosion in Plant Landscapes

Hi, I'm David with Smartscapes, LLC here in Nashville, Tennessee and we have an early Spring morning and we're going to be talking about how to control erosion in landscaping. Erosion in landscaping is a huge problem. It's something that everybody runs into and especially on a property like this that we're standing on, there's about five acres of land that the water comes down in through here so there's several different ways that we control the erosion here on this property and I'm going to show you how we do it. First off, we put in a drain system that runs the perimeter of the backside of the house and we hid some of the drains in the landscaping over in here. There's a surface drain right over here that is basically the low spot of this area so when water does come in it has the tendency to go that way, when it goes that way it collects in that drain and then it runs off. Another issue that you have with erosion in your landscape is sometimes the dirt or mulch will wash off, and we have an area over here beside the pondless waterfall that we have a concern with and so we planted some Cotoneaster along the side of it. The Cotoneaster not only loves the waterfall but it also helps protect the ground and keep it from moving. Another way that you could help control the erosion in your landscape is by mulching. You've got any number of mulches that you can use, pine needles, shredded hardwood, pine bark mulch, it doesn't do as well, it has a tendency to wash and then you have any number of aggregates that you can find locally whether its river rock or whatever other small rock you want to landscape with and we'll show you a couple of different places where it was important for us to use a little heavier mulch like an aggregate to be able to control erosion. Another way that we'll try to control erosion in landscapes is by using rocks. Now over here at the pondless waterfall, that's a huge example of it. It not only looks natural but we're also holding the Earth back for this big boulder that are so heavy that the Earth can't push it over. So that's another great example of how to control erosion in a landscape. We do it with boulders and stuff all the time and it doesn't actually have to be a waterfall or a pondless waterfall or whatever, but we use large aggregates to help control erosion in the landscape as well. Now up here, we have a totally different dynamic than what we were experiencing before. Up here it's the upper patio that's above the waterfall and what we're finding happening up here is we have a large area of the impermeable surface that it it needs to be able to run off of flow, so what's very important in doing erosion control is to be able to make it look like it was natural, like it was there and everything should have at least one purpose if not three. Now for example, we made like a drown river bed that ran off this flagstone patio up here. Now this flagstone patio has boulders for a fire pit, river boulders for a fire pit so we had to figure out a way to get rid of this water and so we made this dry creek bed that runs off over in through here. A lot of the water goes off over in through there but also we found a great way to replenish the pondless waterfall with rain water so we have part of the grade going over into the pondless waterfall with rain water so we have part of the grade going over into the pondless waterfall over there as well and what it does is it marries up a great way to take the rainwater, reduce erosion and put it to use in your landscapes. Over here you'll find that we use another method of erosion control and we used some Juniper and basically, they're a ground cover and they're a spreader. What they're going to do is they're going to, that root system is going to get in there and it's going to hold that Earth in place because we have two different levels that we're dealing with over here. We don't want that Earthmoving. The Juniper is going to do a great job of holding that Earth in place so we don't have to worry about that. A good design would not only serve the purpose of erosion control but also make it aesthetically pleasing and look like it's meant to be there. Again, I'm David with Smartscapes, LLC. Thanks for watching our video.

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