Very steep all rocky bank erosion

[PraticalGardener]

How can this erosion be resolved? The concave eroded bank is right beside my driveway. The biggest section of it is 4 feet tall, and 7 feet from the base of the eroded bank. The surface is nothing but small rocks, and I think it gets about 5 hours of sunlight. It faces west, and is beneath a power line. It also has two small plastic pipe ends sticking out, one towards each end, the left one had water flowing out of it after a nice rain.
Above the eroded bank is a water break I can maintain in the sparse 'lawn'. Further up are mature White Oak trees, as close as 19 feet. The road is just uphill of the trees.

Picture: In progress. I will try again to post the pictures.

[PraticalGardener]

. This show the main section of the eroded bank.

. This shows the length of the rocky bank. The camera is facing North.

[applestar]

To my book-learned eyes, I feel like this situation is a candidate for series of terraced beds built WITH hugelcultur downslope and swales upslope.

These are elements of Permaculture.

…to be clear, I have no actual experience building something at this scale — all I’ve been doing have been suburban garden in very flat part of NJ, and my “slope” consists of grading between houses.

[PraticalGardener]

Thank-you. I can give this a try.

[imafan26]

Because of the steepness of the bank. It is hard to prevent it from eroding. The best bet would be terracing, either by cutting the bank back or if you cannot do that, build a terrace in front of it. As Applestar mentioned, the terrace should be sloped slightly toward the bank so water will be directed toward the bank and not further eroding the edge. Where water naturally flows off the bank, you should be directing water from terraces to swales preferably to something like a collecting pond or a rain garden when there is heavy rain so it can capture any silt.

It sounds like you may not have a lot of space to reduce the grade of the slope. So you will need to make the terrace walls higher.

Your other options would be a retaining wall, but since there is a lot of weight it needs to hold back, it is better to hire a professional and make sure it is done with all the permits to make sure it meets specs. If you still have some room, it can still be partially terraced so you can get more use out of the space.

When we bought our house, we specifically looked for a lot that did not have a slope. Especially since we would have to pay taxes on a slope that is really not useable land without an expensive wall. We especially did not want to be downslope of a 30 ft embankment. Our neighbor had one that was hard to weed whack and when it rained heavily, the water came pouring down and pooled in his yard.

[PraticalGardener]

Thank-you. I definitely do not want to extend the slope further into the driveway.
When I drove my car around, with the height of the car grill and deer guard, I am sometimes inches from the existing eroded slope with the deer guard. In hindsight, I may not want trees in the area due to the power line overhead, and the power line's right-of-way.

I'm wondering if I can use plant roots as a (temporary?) 'band-aid' fix, including with alpine strawberry plants with their runners, and other plants to help hold the soil/rocks in place on the eroded slope. They need to handle about 5 hours of sunlight, likely drought conditions, and are under a power line. Mebe some tough native plants and/or some herbs can be ultilized.

In the meantime, I can add a raised bed or a berm above/uphill of the eroded bank.

[imafan26]

Usually for erosion control, you have to cut the bank back. 5 hours of sun won't be enough. For stabilization on steep banks here they use erosion blankets and fencing. The fencing here is because of rockfalls. Shallow rooted plants won't work for erosion control. After stabilization, usually deep rooted plants, shrubs, trees, and native grasses with deep roots are used and a ground cover is used to cover the rest of the bare ground.