As the wet and rainy season nears, the thought of how to protect your landscape installations from water erosion becomes a primary concern. Rocks and stones are perfect natural solutions for preventing and controlling water erosion damage in your landscaping installations.

The best way to get started is to choose the most appropriate type of rocks for an installation. When it comes to water erosion control, the larger rocks and stones are the better choice. The reason is that larger rocks won’t be displaced by high velocity water like smaller ones can. Apart from the size of the rocks, the shape matters just as much. Angular shaped rocks and stones are ideal as they interlock together better than rounder ones do.

The placement and depth of the stones is the second most important detail in putting together this erosion-friendly installation. For very high energy dissipation areas (such as jetty rock or flash flood channel stabilization) large boulders that weigh a ton or more should be used. For smaller-scale projects, such as dissipating the water energy at the outflow of a rain gutter, material as small as 2 inches can be dispersed.

As a general rule of thumb, rocks and stones being used as an erosion control measure should be installed at a greater depth than those being used as decorative ground cover.

Many installations that use stones for the purpose of controlling water erosion will have the stones set in a concrete slurry to keep everything in place. Another application option is to have loose stones placed in a geogrid, such as our Slope Grid product, to keep material from migrating downhill over time.

Water erosion can cause expensive soil damage during the rainy season but especially during severe weather conditions. Using rocks and stones as a preventative measure against water erosion can be the best solution for protecting your landscape project.