If you just purchased a new home that is on five acres, you have a lot of land to work. This allows you to have beautiful landscaping. Because you are on a lot of acreage, however, you may find that you have problems with erosion. Erosion means your yard does not have enough slope for rain water to flow away from your home. Erosion washes away health top soil leaving behind soil that has no nutrients. The water can also flow to your home causing problems with foundation or basement flooding. To help below are three erosion control methods you can use so you can have beautiful landscaping.
Erosion Control Methods
There are many ways you can control erosion on your property including:
Level Land
One thing that is expensive but works great is to have your yard leveled out. This will take time and remove a lot of your grass, so you will have to wait for everything to grow back again.
To level land a landscape contractor will use a small tractor to remove the top portion of your soil until the land is level. When finished, they will likely replant grass for you. Once the grass grows, you can start landscaping.
Use Baffles
If you do not want to level out your yard, you can use baffles to divert water. Baffles are timbers or stones that are partially buried into the ground. These work well if you have a small slope in your yard.
To make the baffles look good you can plant flowers around them. Spreading flowers will cover up the baffles. For example, vincas spread easily, as well as petunias. Consider how much sun the areas gets before you plant your flowers.
Install Retaining Wall
A retaining wall can be made with concrete blocks, stones, bricks, etc. When water hits the retaining wall, the water diverts to somewhere else.
If you want a high retaining wall you will have to get a building permit. If the retaining wall will only be a few feet tall, however, you do not have to have a permit. The height depends on the area where you live.
You can dress up a retaining wall to make it look great. For example, plant climbing roses at the base of the wall or some type of climbing vines, such as English Ivy, Virginia Creeper, or Boston Ivy.
Talk to a landscaping contractor, such as from Bark Blowers & Hydroseeding Inc, about this information and they can give you many more details.