New Yard, Completely Overwhelmed

Good afternoon and hello all (this is my first post here!)

I recently purchased my first home (Apr 2012). I have never in my life been a green thub kind of person. My new property has a couple challenges facing it, but the yard is my area of biggest concern at this time. I was hoping that I could post here and perhaps get some ideas on how I can start building my yard into something to be proud of. I am in USDA zone 6.

General Observations:
Issue #1 - The house sits on the border of a large state forest. My property is clear, but is completely surrounded by forest (mixed pine/oak/other).
Issue #2 - The cleared portion of my yard is extremely sandy. There (was) generally good grass coverage. That leads to Issue #3.

Back Yard Observations:
Issue #3 - Last year I was also in the process of getting married, so the yard was completely neglected. I discovered in early May, though, that I had a very major grub infestation in my yard. The grubs completely decimated my entire back yard. What grass is left is "token grass" - sitting on top of sand, but completely dead and lacking root systems. If I rake, it comes right off.
Issue #4 - Roughly 40% of my back yard is a leaching field for my private sewer. Not sure what, if anything, can be planted on top of that. However, because of Issue #3, I need to do something to prevent my leaching field from washing away.

Front Yard Observations:
Issue #5 - My entire front yard is a roughly 50 degree slope that directly abuts a street. The original stone wall that marked the end of my property has mostly washed away. Mowing the front yard is terrifying and dangerous. I do not want to have to deal with this any more.
Issue #6 - The grubs have been at work here, too, and have eaten most of the grass that at some point was preventing erosion from flowing down this steep hill and into the street.

My primary area of concern for this year is getting the front yard squared away, since it is washing away at a rapid rate. I had originally considered terracing the front yard but that plan has turned out to be cost prohibitive. I have since moved on to thinking about non-grass ground covers for the entire frontage.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do/plant in the front yard that would shore up against erosion well (and quickly!), look attractive, require minimal maintainence, and not cost more than about 2g? I have maybe 1/8 acre to work on in the front yard.

Does anyone have any suggestions on things that I might start doing this year to protect the leaching field from excessive deterioration while I focus on the front yard?

Option 1:
Cheapest erosion control:
Hydroseed with the right seed mix for your area. Include a material in the blend that acts like glue to hold the soil until the plants sprout.
Questions to answer so you can talk to the hydroseed people:
Will you irrigate in the dry seasons?
Do you want perennials (plants that live for several years)?
Do you want annuals that will reseed? (annuals are short lived, but some will reliably come back from seed)
Use a pesticide against the grubs. Proper ID is very important. 'Grubs' might be caterpillars, or beetle larvae, and the control for each is different. There may be organic or IPM (Integrated Pest Management) controls for the pests. Catch some grubs and take them to a reputable nursery or other place where the pests can be identified.

Option 2
Next cheapest (not cheap, but very effective)
1) Remove weeds.
2) Add irrigation, if it is needed in your area.
3) Add soil conditioner. You can do this for each plant, but if there is any way of blending it with all the soil that is better. (Difficult to do on a steep hill, perhaps the best you can do is to spread it on the surface and walk it in as you plant. Mix with each planting hole, though.)
4) Plant ground cover plants from flats. Most species are spaced about 12" apart, and can give you a pretty full cover in 1-2 years. For erosion control you want plants that will keep on spreading underground and along the surface, rooting as they go.
5) Cover the whole area with mulch such as ground bark. Not bark chips, they will roll down that steep hill. The chips that tree companies make when they prune trees will probably stay on a hill. Certainly better than semi-round bark chips. Make plenty of phone calls to tree companies. Around here they will deliver the material by the truckload for free.

Why do step 3:
Organic matter encourages a wide range of soil microorganisms, and probably will foster the beneficial organisms that can slow down the grubs.
Organic matter helps sandy soils to hold moisture, so your new plants can grow better.
Organic matter decomposes to form a low grade fertilizer, and decomposes into a material (Humus) that helps hold fertilizers ready for the plants to use. This is called cationic exchange capacity.
Organic matter usually lowers the pH of the soil, and many fertilizers are best available at a slightly acidic pH.

Why do step 5:
Coarser organic matter will compost over time, continuing the benefits that you started in step 3. The composting is slow, so the good things seep slowly into the soil, improving it over time. Keep the soil covered, replacing the mulch as needed. (probably once a year, a good top dressing in any areas the plants are not covering the soil).
ANYthing you can cover the soil with will discourage weeds. While weeds can be effective erosion control, you are really wanting nicer plants- ground cover from flats.

Minor upgrade to option 2
Add some shrubs from 1 gallon or smaller cans to the hillside.
Some of these can be ground cover sorts of shrubs- something that stays fairly low, under about 3' and spreads, probably rooting where it touches the ground. These also form a ground cover, but are slower than plants from flats.
Some of these shrubs can be larger/taller shrubs, to add some vertical interest. Plant these is small groupings or zig-zag drifts, mixing perhaps 2 species: 1-2 of something, then half a dozen of something else.

Diana - you covered it all!
My husband leaves the lights on every time he exits a room....after he gets in from work---- the house is ablaze with light. What can I do short of wrist removal to stop it??? (grin)

Seriously, great advice. Not sure how it would do in Tuco's zone, but cotoneaster will behave as needed for that slope. Ours goes up about a foot before heading back down and rooting. Some branches creep along ground surface rooting as it goes. It might help to visit a retail plant nursery that offers landscape design to ask for recommendations. Generally staff very willing to share knowlege and added advantage is that we can see the plants/shrubs/ trees right on the site. They will stock what will grow well in that zone.

There are automatic sensors, quite cheap, that tell the lights if there is someone in the room, and will turn out the lights if there is no one in there. I do not know if they react to movement or heat.
I bought one a while ago, but have not installed it yet. It is installed in place of the regular light switch in the wall.

Cotoneaster dammeri varieties are pretty cold tolerant, and do not really have that stiff look so common among many low growing Cotoneaster, but it is indeed best to go to the local nurseries and find out what is available. Talk to the older nurserymen (or nursery women). They are the ones who will usually steer you right. Avoid the younger ones who just want to sell you whatever is on the shelf.

Hi Tuco, welcome to Dave's garden site, you will get lots of great advice here and friendly chat's too.
Best advice to give you is, first garden seams daunting to us all, so try relax, the garden aint going away so there is no rush for it all to be done in one season.
Rush into it and you will make lots of EXPENSIVE mistakes, we all fall into that trap when we want instant results only to find all the work need redone because we forgot the basics or something to that effect.

I was wondering IF it could be possible to have the steep slope terraced in some way as you are very afraid to cut the grass out there, again you dont have to do the whole job all at once but if you start it, then mark out the whole area so you keep to the plan you started,
Use either store walls, thick lengths of wood or look in adverts or on line for old Scaffolding planks Material you get from building sites or re-clame yards where old building materials are found for sale, old wooden Rail sleepers are great but make sure they have NOT been treated with Creosote or tar as this can leach into your soil.

I would for this year spend the time planning out the garden areas you need to work on, take a picture of the house and pin it to a board, cover the picture (blown up to larger size) with tracing paper or greaceproof paper for baking is good too as you can see through this, then draw out all the pathways, drains, electric, water pipes and any other structures you have to keep, this allows you to plan with all those in mind like hide them with rose arch or make a feature.

then get hose pipe out and lay this along the ground to define pathways, beds ect, go inside and look out to see if you need to adjust the curve or make beds larger /smaller, as you will be looking out onto this shape / structure ect for a long tome.
At the side of page, write down products, plants, colour of paving stones , gravel or other items as it's easy to forget your plasns without going back and forward, the tracing paper allows you to rub out lines etc and change the scheme as you work.
Go to book store, library to look at landscape books for Beginners, these will give you abundant ideas and hints as to how to do retaining walls ect, aslo help match or compliment the materials used to build your house with what could look good as pathway materials.
Even IF you cant do it all yourself, then you will need a plan to get costings from landscape companies, so you will need a paper plan of some sort.

Think that's enough for now Tuco, hope it helps you get started, dont get in a flap, gardening is supposed to be fun, a place to relax and a place to show you are marking your spot on this planet ha, ha, ha, I've seen some funny markings !!!!!, but thats what gardening is all about your own stamp, your own taste, your own little sanctuary.

Best regards and happy gardening.
WeeNel.

I'm not sure if this will work in MA but I know folks who have done it here with some success.

To cover a sandy soil until you can get grass to grow they will sometimes use a fertilizer and water it in then rake the top of the soil. After that spread annual rye grass, white clover and crimson clover. Basically, you be making what would a pasture. The rye grass grows fast to get the soil some initial cover but dies of by late spring, by then the clovers with be getting a good root system established. It will need to watered if you don't get a regular rain. The good about clover is that if it's the innocculated type it will put nitrogen into the soil. The reason for the two types is one has a wide spreading root system while the other has a fairly deep root system. The drawback is deer absolutely love clover.

Anyway, once the winter hit these will die off and next year you can plant whatever grass you want.

You should also consider some bushes or trees to put near the wash out.

This message was edited Apr 29, 2013 6:46 PM

I was in a somewhat similar situation to you about 25 years ago in MA probably not too far from you.
It is possible that you had new grass there that never had a chance to establish a root system that just died due to neglect and might not be a grub problem at all.

Edit: Just noticed you say $2K so it seems you want to hire someone: Are you going to pay professionals or do this yourself?

You say it is sand? I take it you mean sandy soil?
It is common for builders not to put in enough top soil, have you considered having some brought in? Usually it is too expensive.

Hydroseeding is probably the best way, have you gotten an estimate? What type of seed do they use, are there options as to the seed type?

I simply overseeded our new lawn at our last home, with a tri-blend of Kentucky Bluegrass, but it was only mildly sloped and we had a watering system.

I did the same thing here at my latest home but I used a drought tolerant type since we do not have irrigation. This is the tri-blend type that I used:
http://www.northeastnursery.com/files/NENTriHybridBlueBlend2010.pdf
The supplier is at least in your state:
http://www.northeastnursery.com/lawn/specialty.html

Some say that the improved Tall Fescues are even better but I'm trying this first in the front and side lawns.
Also, Kentucky Blugrass is very slow to germinate which might work with hydroseeding but might just wash away without it, so you might want to blend in a fast germinating type to help stop the erosion.

This message was edited May 1, 2013 6:47 AM