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Concerned about soil washing away on the slope in your yard, in that bank by your driveway, or on the newly cleared land by your back garden? Then this is a quick list to get you started!
Note: If you're concerned about major landslides, then stabilization with plants is not your first step - you'll need to address drainage and slow stormwater flow. Immediately consider regrading, terracing, retaining walls, and erosion mats before planting. While not simple or fast solutions, if you start from square one, you'll sleep easier! Check out this blog by the NC Extension Master Gardeners for some great information to get you started.
So, we'd all like quick control. You might have heard your uncle say to plant English Ivy or Vinca. These cheap invasives have no trouble covering ground, but at what cost to you AND the environment? They grow unchecked, overrun their boundaries, and choke out ecologically significant plants. For such a "low maintenance" plant, you may be in for more work than you ever imagined. Also, these plants get boring to look at. Choose the right plants for your location that you and the birds and pollinators love, and you will be enjoying this space for a long, long time.
Give your bank the respect you would a normal landscape bed. You have many plant options at your disposal and, with a little creativity, you can have a low maintenance slope full of color, texture, ecological significance, and stability. A successful example at a team member's home includes St. John's Wort, Goldenrod, and River Oats --bright, beautiful, beneficial, and beyond effective!
This list features plants that can naturalize small areas by suckering roots; plants that have a tendency to spread by self-sowing (great for your pocketbook too!); and those that have deep fibrous roots that hold banks. Plants with well-developed root systems can inhibit erosion by securing the soil from runoff in rainstorms or from blowing away. Plus many of these are native plants which are especially well-suited to the climate and soil conditions, making them excellent choices for erosion control. Eroding banks are not all one and the same--watch for the asterisk denoting plants that need/thrive in moist soil, and the italics indicating those preferring part shade.
Grasses
Blue Fescue
Feather Reed Grass
Little Bluestem
Love Grass
Northern Sea Oats
Pennsylvania Sedge
Pink Muhly Grass
Prairie Dropseed
Switch Grass
Rhizomatous
(UNDERGROUND STEMS)
Bee Balm
Daylily
Fern (Ostrich, Christmas, Lady, etc)
Dwarf Crested Iris*
Lamb's Ear
Lemon Balm
Red Hot Poker
Wildflowers
Aromatic Aster
Black-eyed Susan
Blanket Flower
Blue Flag Iris*
Butterfly Milkweed
Coneflower
Coreopsis
False Sunflower
Hoary Vervain
Ironweed*
Mountain Mint
Spotted Bee Balm
Sunflower 'Maximilian'
Wild Bergamot
Yellow Coneflower
White Wood Aster
Small-scale Groundcovers
Ajuga
Creeping Phlox
Foamflower
Creeping Speedwell
Green and Gold
Heuchera
Pachysandra
Lamium
Hardy Ice Plant
Sedum ('Angelina', 'Blue Spruce' ...)
Woodland Phlox
Upright Suckering Shrubs
Arrowwood Viburnum
Beautyberry
Blueberry
Bush Honeysuckle
Buttonbush*
Swamp Rose*
Doghobble*
Elderberry*
False Indigo
Forsythia
Inkberry
Itea
Ninebark
Red Chokeberry
Redtwig Dogwood
Serviceberry
Shrubby St. Johns Wort
Smooth Sumac
Summersweet
Willow
Winterberry*
Sprawling Shrubs
Bearberry
Blackberry
Cotoneaster
Fragrant Sumac
Creeping Juniper
Raspberry
*Prefers wet feet, [italics] Prefers shade
Click here to download a copy of this list:
Given our recent events here in Western NC, we need to say explicitly that this document is not to address large scale landslides. We are not experts at geologic solutions or slope gradations. If your embankment or slope is extreme, please first consider physical mitigations and perhaps professional support. This article is to offer plant solutions for smaller scale, residential slopes.