When to Remove Erosion Control Blanket?

[Jason777]

I am going back and forth of removing the Curlex erosion control blanket rather than letting it degrade over many months. The product documentation says it won’t even begin to organically biodegrade for 90 days after installation. The wood fibers could take 6 months and the plastic netting much longer and could get caught in the mower blades. My fear is taking it out too soon before the roots have established enough to prevent washout of all the new dirt that was put on this slope. I put about 3-4 yards of topsoil on this slope to fix some issues.

Can anyone provide some guidance on when the roots of new grass are established enough where the risk of washout is not that great and the blankets could be removed. I am only 13 days into my reno and the grass is about 2-3 inches on the slope so I imagine I still have a ways to go if I were going to remove.

If it were you, would you remove them as soon as you could or leave them for a certain period of time?

Here are before and current reno pics to see the dirt that was added.

[rydaddy]

Removing them will cause problems. Not to mention could be a Pain. I've been in your shoes. Really need to leave it alone and let Mother Nature run its course.


Sent from my iOS device using the Yard Help App

[nclawnguy]

You either have to take them up as soon as you have germination or wait until they breakdown. If you pull them up now, it will rip out seedlings.

[Jason777]

Bummer...ok I guess I will leave them be if that is the best option. Once I can walk on my reno I will probably at least take out the metal staples I put on the curlex so they are not hard to find down the road.

[mattya]

I used the same ones - Leave them be. I did have some areas where the wood fibers were very thick and the grass couldn't come up through it so I just hand picked some of the wood fibers out of those areas to thin it out. The rest, I just left to break down. By the following Spring it was all gone.

There might have been areas that I cut up the plastic if it was pulling away from the wood fibers and getting in the way.