The acre has two areas with erosion problems — one fairly serious, and the other more minor. The serious erosion problem is in the southeast corner of the lot and is undercutting our wood fence. It’s a bit downhill toward the back fence and the woods beyond, but the real erosion problem seems to stem from the pipe a previous owner put in to channel downspout water from the house, away from the house. The erosion is immediately downhill of the mouth of the pipe.
We were looking for plants to put in the eroded area to put some root mass in place, both to control the erosion and to keep the Microstegium vimineum (stiltgrass) at bay. The corner is heavily shaded, especially in summer. We considered ferns, especially Dennstaedtia punctilobula (the hay-scented fern), as it is known to be fairly fast spreading and allegedly can out-compete the Microstegium. The challenge is that the area is also part of the path to the compost bin, and we were concerned the ferns would simply get trampled. We settled on Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern sea oats) – a tall perennial grass that does well in shade and, we hope, spreads aggressively to outcompete the Microstegium. We planted 3 x Chasmanthium in late October 2024.
We also have put in several 3-4″ diameter logs as water bars, just to slow the flow a bit. Ideally we’d set them partially into the ground and stake them in place, but as of October 2024 they’re just sitting on the surface. That’s probably not as effective but should help.
The long-term solution will probably be to re-direct the downspout flow to the yet-to-be built rain garden. That will take digging up and reburying the PVC pipe sending the flow to the eroded area.