Landscaping grassy bank

Cee-Jay-Cee

I have 3m banks at the front and rear of my house, approximately 20m at the rear and 45m at the front. I strim them every so often but want to landscape them with either chips or wood hip/mulch as they look so untidy most of the time.

Can anyone give me a few tips on how best to do this. Do I strim the grass, remove the cut grass and kill the remainder with Gallop/Round up and then put down a membrane? Or should I be using something else to treat the ground before putting down a membrane?

And is there any specific type of membrane I should be using or will what ever the local co-op sells do the job?

And lastly, should I go the full hog now and lay chips/stones or will woodchip last as long?

DANNY2014

Wood rots eventually and needs topping up...afaik... I'd go stone chippings you can get a nice gold coloured stone for €90 a tonne... Spread that out and add low lying shrubs and some big flat stones here and there...

looksee

If you put stones down on a membrane on a slope you will very quickly have bare membrane and a heap of stones at the bottom of the slope. Same applies to bark mulch. Even without membrane the stones/bark will slip down. Its also quite likely if you kill all the vegetation the soil will erode. How steep is the slope?

Cee-Jay-Cee

The banks have roughly a 25 degree slope so are reasonably steep.

_Brian

Bark Mulch on membrane is awful. It quickly rots and forms a rich soil on top of the membrane which is awsome to grow weeds.
Mulch onto soil, stone on Membrane works well.

The slope you describe should hold stone but any kids etc walking on it will drag it down.

How about, spray it off, thick layer of mulch, plant shrubs and ground cover into bank which will cover the ground and look well and natural.

Cee-Jay-Cee

_Brian wrote: »

Bark Mulch on membrane is awful. It quickly rots and forms a rich soil on top of the membrane which is awsome to grow weeds.
Mulch onto soil, stone on Membrane works well.

The slope you describe should hold stone but any kids etc walking on it will drag it down.

How about, spray it off, thick layer of mulch, plant shrubs and ground cover into bank which will cover the ground and look well and natural.

Thanks, that's a possibility but then I have to consider the maintenance of the shrubs on the bank. Ideally I'm looking for a maintenance free solution and stone chips are probably the only solution at this stage.

_Brian

Most shrubs are essentially Maintenance free, maybe a trim every few years if they are growing strong but it's not a big deal.

Much more interesting than stone. (No offence).

magicbastarder

agreed, stone would look awfully barren and you'd probably be creating a rod for your own back.

Lumen

Sedum?

A bank of gravel is going to look like a quarry. Avoid.