help -what to do with slope/banking

gooner99

Hi. Between my mother in laws house and lawn, there is a slope/bank which is surrounded by kerbing and filled with loose stones.under the stones there is soil, then a netting layer to stop the stones sliding down to the bottom. Needless to say the netting is not doing it's job and the stones are just sliding down the slope and she is left with lots of bare patches and the weeds are just growing up through the stones anyway.She would like to replace this with a no maintenance solution. Extending the lawn onto the slope is not really and option as it is too steep to cut and there is already kerbing surrounding this slope/banking. Have any of you dealt with this before or have any ideas for the best solution that looks quite good?

Here are a few pics of the slope.

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?wkli9l35r97beya

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?t73xct5exjq33hc

What about digging into the slope and then building a wall, so you have flat ground, meeting vertical wall, then the lawn eg.

or sowing wildflowers on the slope, great for nature and low maintenance

Oldtree

Taking that idea a bit further you could use railway sleepers to build a number of smaller terraces/tiers, then reuse the mesh and stones and plant up as you see fit.

Starting at the botton with one sleeper, dig back into the slope to back of fourth step and use material to fill gap. Then use 3 sleepers to make the next level, and so on up the slope. You could do any arrangement of this idea, dont forget to brace sleepers from behind or drill through and brace with steel rods hammered through into the ground.

paddy147

A couple of old reclaimed railway sleepers or new PT sleepers secured in place with long 3 x 2 PT stakes down along the slope and this will solve the issue.

Basicly you turn the slope into 3 or 4 "long gradual steps"


Then relay the stones or use bark mulch to level off each step and plant some nice plants/flowers/shrubs.You can also lay down some Mypex membrane under the stones/bark mulch,if you dont want any weeds to grow up out of the soil below.

You have now turned a slope into a lovely feature.

Simples.:)

PS-Shrubs and wild flowers are great for holding the soil of a bank/slope in place.

Cedrus

Plant groundcover Cotoneasters (or similar) all across it, you'll need to keep weeding until it's established but it will be maintenance free after that apart from a bit of water if we ever get a summer again.

Oldtree

If using a bark mulch use composted bask which is very fine and after a wetting sticks togeather forming a good weed supressing mat. Medium or large chip bark is a waste of money as it just dries up and blows away.

Alpine plants would do well here.

Thunderbird2

You could build up the area with rocks and grow plants.. Even add a pond less waterfall

ponddigger

hi gooner 99.a nice pondless waterfall would be nice on that slope:Dponddigger:D

Oldtree

Ooooooooo...... nice