Tips To Help Control Erosion Around Your Home

While extreme cases of erosion are signified by mudslides and gullies, signs of erosion around your home are usually subtle. Things such as traces of mud on your pavement and exposed roots rarely ring the look-out-for-erosion bell. As a result, it is common for homeowners to leave their homesteads vulnerable to the mineral-draining and contamination-encourage effects of soil erosion. This is so especially in cases where a large part of your home's landscape is made up of a slope. The good news is that once the signs have been detected, minimizing the effects of soil erosion is easy. The following are simple tips that will come in handy in helping you do so.

Create obstructions

Erosion is usually severe in cases where water runs the fastest. Creating an obstruction will reduce the boost that gravity usually gives running water. This obstruction may be in the form of a pieces of timber or stone. Simply laying the timber pieces in such a way that they are parallel to the slope will help to reduce the water's velocity. As for the rocks, simply spreading them on the slope will do the trick. This will reduce the ability of the water to dislodge soil particles and dissolve minerals, something that will go along way towards preserving the richness of your home's topsoil. To preserve the aesthetic beauty of your home, you may want to partially bury the obstructions.

Create terraces

Instead of adding timber or stones on the slope, you can simply create a stair-step on the slope. Doing so will create breaks in the slope, something that will go a long way towards reducing the rate of water flow. It will also give the water enough time to seep to the ground. For an even better effect, you can plant vegetation on the terraced areas. The vegetation will not only help to further reduce the rate of water flow, but also help to improve the aesthetic appeal of the terraced slope.

When creating the terrace, it is important to ensure that it is slightly sloped. This is because leveled-off terraces usually encourage the accumulation of water at the back of the terraced sections. Also, to ensure a durable erosion-preventing terrace, you should consider using materials such as precast concrete blocks, stones, and timber when building the retaining walls of your terraces. Doing so will dispense with the need to do constant repair work aimed at keeping your terraces functional.

For more information, contact companies like Bill's Hydroseed.