Use a Dry Creek Bed for Erosion Control

Time to build a dry creek bed. Have you built your Southwestern Dream Home? Is the landscaping portion of the project giving you fits?

On our latest trip to Tucson, we found that what we had seen on The Weather Channel was true! Sometimes heavy rains in the Southwest can create havoc on an otherwise beautiful backyard.

We’ve been gone over two months, and when we returned with another trailer loaded down with furniture, we discovered our beautiful new driveway was a “little” narrower. The recent rains have washed away truckloads of dirt and rock, and made it nearly impossible to cross the driveway to our temporary home. Above you will see Myron helping us rebuild the driveway.

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Near the mobile home, which will be our home for about a year while we wait for our new house to be built, there was even more evidence of the devastation water can bring to a desert landscape.

At the rear of the trailer, among the mesquite trees Tom and the guys trimmed last time around, I found an erosion control problem I’ll just have to handle on the next trip. As you can see, rivulets of water take the path of least resistance and create something akin to a dry creek bed. Only in this circumstance, there is nothing to help with erosion control so it’s really getting out of hand.

So with a little ingenuity and a lot of muscle, next time around I’ll show you how easy it is to create a dry creek bed in an area like this. All it takes is a shovel, a strong back, and lots of rocks. I’ll need to get some sand to place underneath, then spread some landscape cloth over the area where I want the dry creek bed to be.

I’ll vary the width and the course of my little dry creek bed to create interest, and mortar some stones in place to control the erosion in the future.

When it’s finished, I’ll add some plantings around my dry creek bed to make it look natural, and to create a place for wildlife to hide when they come to visit me. I’ve already made friends with a family of quail this time around, so I know I need a place for them to run when they are frightened. (They get that way a lot.)

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