One of the issues that the hill that my parents' home is built on at the Ranch is some erosion. Part of it is caused by a resident mole and gopher population that has to go, but part of it is due to the fact that the native grass is not covering everything.
I have seen this several times and thought "I should do something about that", but have not really done anything - until this visit when, as I was raking up the fallen oak leaves at the base of the driveway and moving them to the side of the road, I thought "I wonder if I could use these for some kind of ground cover?" The idea, in principle, is taken from Friend-Of-This-Blog Eaton Rapids Joe's fictional series The Cumberland Saga (if you are not reading him, you should be), where the main character's main job is soil erosion mitigation.
If a made up character can do it, perhaps I could take a go at it too.
I essentially raked the wet leaves, shoveled them up into the wheelbarrow, brought them up the hill, and spread them out (you can see the edge of the driveway in the first picture below).
(One note: we do not often get the sort of downpours that happen at New Home, so I am hopeful they leaves will be less prone to floating downhill due to gentler rain.)
Use a bagging mower to pick them up, chopped they don't blow or wash away as bad. I have best luck putting seed down early winter, during or just befor ground covering snow.
ReplyDeleteAnon- Thanks for the information. Unfortunately I did not have a bagging mower to hand. I did think about seed, but this was on a Sunday afternoon and I was leaving the next day. If the weather holds, I may try some in December.
DeleteLike Anon, I don't have much luck using whole leaves as they tend to dry out and blow away but chopped leaves work quite nicely as mulch. My preference though is straw since it still allows air circulation through. Leaves can matt down and create an air barrier causing what grass growing underneath to die off.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with the native grasses of that area. But here, if you want a grass to prevent erosion but yet doesn't grow very tall, canary grass is the grass of choice. We plant it in all our waterways, i.e. low points where water tends to run in hard rains, in all our fields. It is quite easy to grow (here at least) and gets nice and thick yet only maybe 18 inches tall at full growth.
Ed - Whole leaves were probably not the ideal, but they were 1) free; and 2) close at hand. The matting problem did come to mind, so I tried to spread them out as best I could manage.
DeleteI intend to try to find some grass to drop in there - whatever was there originally has not been doing well.
Good use of info from fellow bloggers TB, let us know how this turns out.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, I remain a great believer in the power of the Social Internet exactly for things like this.
DeleteGround cover always helps, and it's always excellent to experiment!
ReplyDeleteHave you tested the soil in that spot! It may give some clues as to why nothing grows well there. It might just be a matter of a simple change in pH or the mineral balance.
Leigh, most of my experiments do not work, but I least I have the benefit of negative feedback.
DeleteWe have never tested the pH of the soil there, to my awareness. It strikes me a bit odd that it would be significantly different from the soil 10 feet away - but who knows!
Snip A recent study published in the journal Science found that oak trees may be allelopathic, meaning they secrete chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants.
ReplyDeleteThat's how oaks suppress the growth of competition around them.
The road crews use woven matts of straw and reeds for active erosion and straw and seed for less serious areas. Once the less is grassed the rest follows.
That is not terribly surprising to me Michael, although I also will note they manage to crowd out most other growth by sunlight inhibition as well.
DeleteI notice (as I have more than a few around) that they fail to block all that much sunlight for over half the year.
DeleteThe Park folks keep the Oaks in the pretty lawn areas grass friendly by raking leaves every year.
Don't know about your area but pesky poison oak seems to grow almost under the winter snow. (muttered curses).
I have placed old, welded fencing rings around poison oak and buried them in Oak Leaves. So far so good after I cut off any signs of life the first year or two.
Michael, poison oak is a problem for us as well. It is certainly not a problem in the pastures or the main roads, but get off trail a bit and there it is. Fortunately I am allergic to it - fortunate only in the sense I know very well what it looks like and how to avoid it, almost in a pathalogical manner.
DeleteMy understanding is that woodlands are fungally dominated and grasslands are bacterially dominated.
ReplyDeleteGrazing ruminates like cattle encourage grass to grow through their manure, urine, hair, slobber, and milk which all contain the beneficial bacteria that healthy grass requires. It would be interesting to gather some cattle manure, waste hay, or bedding from nearby pastures and thinly spread that material over the areas with thin grass stands and see what happens.
Rich, that is a great idea. Fortunately I have a fair amount of both nearby, ready for the hauling.
DeleteTB, that is an interesting wheelbarrow that looks like someone welded part of a barrel to a wheel barrow base. Clever, if that's what that is. Odd, but unique (to me) if that is the original design.
ReplyDeleteBecki, I will check the next time I am out, but I believe it is a barrel welded to a wheeled base. In this case I know the provenance of the item: it was from The Ravishing Mrs. TB's material grandmother, so likely Depression era.
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