Controlling Erosion and Critters

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Erosion control and rotties

Our home is located on a plateau on the side of a hill. We only have a narrow strip of flat land on each side of the house before the land either goes straight up or down. The strip of land on the “down” side of the house is only about 10 feet wide, and runs all the way down the house to the back yard.

When we tried to keep grass in the area, it was an uphill (pun intended) battle with the dogs running back and forth from the front yard to the back. We had to come up with something quick because the dogs were constantly tearing up of the yard, and thus eroding the only strip of land that kept our house from falling down the hill!
The first thing we did was install a fence to keep the dogs from running up and down the hill. Now that the hill was off limits to the dogs, I could plant some serious erosion control plants. For the most part, I have ivy planted. It’s a native around here, and was free, so the choice was simple. Since the ground was falling away from the house so badly, and the walkway was actually getting narrower as the soil ran down the hill, we had to consider some drastic matters. We needed to add fill to level it off, shored up the edge of the walkway, and add some sort of drainage system
I went to the local concrete dealer, and looked around his “lot” to see if there was anything that could hold up the edge of the walkway. Way off in the back, I found a pile of cement parking lot car bumpers that were slightly damaged and on sale. I also purchased some rebar while I was there, and they cut it into 3 foot lengths for me.
Back home, we laid the concrete bumpers end to end on on their edge along the whole length of the walkway along the edge where it was dropping off. Two lengths of rebar were pounded in the ground at either end of the concrete bumpers to hold them in place. Extra drainage was needed along the edge before the hill dropped off, so we placed drain pipe wrapped in filter fabric all along the bottom edge of the concrete.
With the drainage pipe, concrete bumpers and fence in place, we needed to backfill the walkway to level it off and cover the drain pipe. We used sand, packed it down and leveled it. Now it was ready for the carpet.

Indoor/outdoor green carpeting. Well, maybe it’s not exactly a lawn, but it is green, and solves problems like mud, reseeding, dust, and unsightliness of “dog” grass (which consists of 1 blade of grass and the rest mud). I cut the carpet to fit the whole length of the walkway and around my flower beds, and hold it in place with a stone boarder. Living in the north, I can’t tell you how wonderful it looks in the spring when nothing is green except my “lawn”. Mud doesn’t exist any more. Water drains quickly, and I now have full use of my walkway from side to side, end to end. The walkway is dry and level, and has stopped sliding down, away from the house. I replace the carpet every 5-6 years or whenever it looks like it’s getting warn.
Leftovers from the cut carpet were used to put down under x-pens when I go to dog shows. They can also be cut to fit in crates. FYI - this is the same carpet used on the floor at Westminster and many other dog shows. Think about it.