How to Combat Erosion in Your Yard

Bye Bye Weed Barrier, Hello Plants and Mulch

The erosion of my lawn’s soil was epic. Gulleys, pooling water, and rainwater moved so fast across the yard you’d think it was a city street. Some areas felt like sponges days after a storm, and in others, I thought a natural pond might form.

Yard drainage problem number one was the downspout off my back porch. It empties onto the edge of the patio garden, which at that time was a bed of decorative white stone (no plants-previous owner’s design). When I did a little exploring beneath the gravel, I found a weed barrier. The material wasn’t keeping weeds from coming up, and it was slowing the rainwater from going down, so out it came, but the white stones remained. The water absorption got a little better, but not even close to where it needed to be.

About six feet from the patio, my yard begins a slight grade downward toward my neighbor’s property. The previous owner of my property lathered the lawn in chemicals, which created hard-packed clay soil, and when I stopped the chemicals, the lawn thinned. So every time we had a significant storm, I watched from my window as the rain carved a 3-inch deep gully through my yard, running like an unopposed Mighty Mississippi until it dispersed at the bottom of the hill where it generously fed my neighbors’ shrubs.

The next thing I thought might slow the water (this was all trial and error) was to increase the water absorption again near the mouth of the downspout. I pulled up the white gravel in the patio garden bed and installed a flower bed, with hostas surrounding the sides of the downspout near its mouth. I added a few inches of topsoil, followed by compost, water-loving plants, and pine bark mulch. The flow of rainwater slowed considerably, but still too much was escaping and traveling across the yard.

Read More: One Mature Tree Can Intercept More Than 1500 Gallons Of Storm Runoff Annually

Slow rainwater with plants and improved soil

It was obvious that I could not completely stop the water or contain it. I had to slow the rate of flow downhill, which would give the lawn and soil a little more time to manage it. A more porous soil (called loamy soil), thick grass that blocks weeds, and grass roots that penetrate a few inches deep, goes a long way toward reducing erosion.

Starting near the mouth of the downspout and extending about 3 feet, I built up the eroded yard with new soil and compost, seeded it and covered the area with burlap. I found another piece of downspout about 6 feet, joined it with the one on the house (doing this during a storm, by the way) and diverted all of the rain flow in a different direction across the yard until my new grass seed grew in (I would have seen my work wash away very quickly without this).

Fortunately, the weather was on my side and I had a nice thick patch of grass in about 6 weeks. When I removed the extended downspout, I saw that my plan worked – the new grass slowed the river of rainwater, which gave the lawn time to manage the extra water. The following season I filled in the eroded areas of the yard the same way.

It’s remarkable how well this worked. Looking at the lawn now, you would never know that at one point, stormwater carved a gully across its length over and over. Now, the rainwater percolates its way through the garden bed and the lawn, never making its way to the bottom of the hill as it used to. The problem was solved with nothing more than soil, compost, grass seed, burlap, and patience. Lots and lots of patience.