How To Keep Ditches Clear

Landscaping Ideas: No-Mow Ditches

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Few yard maintenance chores are quite so cumbersome as trying to mow grass in a ditch. The mower is usually too large to get in there, and weed trimmers are time-consuming and often awkward to use. However, you needn't have grass in your ditch when there are better options. Be creative; choose plants that thrive in U.S. plant hardiness zones 8 through 10, but remember that a ditch must drain adequately. If it can do that and still be beautiful and low-maintenance, so much the better.

Make a Useful Ditch Rain Garden

Cattails are useful and thrive in wet ditches.

Instead of grass, plant water-loving marginals such as cattails (Typha latifolia) or rushes and sedges. Not only do these low-maintenance perennials come back year after year to naturally take up excess water runoff; with many of these plants you also get bonuses. Cattails, for example, are edible from the roots to the flowers, the dry heads have found use as excellent insulation for homemade clothing and quilts, and the leaves make attractive baskets. The horsetail (Equisetum arvense) is a diuretic traditionally used in folk remedies for kidney stones and other ailments, and can double as a scouring pad for cleaning and polishing your pots. Your planted ditch can give you all that and still make a pretty little water garden to attract birds, butterflies and amphibians to your home.

Low-Maintenance Flagstone and Ground Cover

Flagstones and moss make great ditch liners.

Laying flagstones directly in the soil of the ditch -- from which you must first remove the grass with a spade -- keeps the ditch from eroding while making a still-permeable no-mow surface. The spaces between the stones allow for water to soak into the ground. You need to plant the gaps with a moisture-loving ground cover to prevent grass from returning between the stones, however, and to keep water from working its way under the stones and dislodging them. Mosses of many species work well in damp conditions, as do plants such as the 1- to 4-inch-tall Acorus gramineus, or miniature golden sweet flag, which can handle drought as well as complete submersion in water. It does best in partial to full shade, so use it for shadier ditches. For sunny areas, try the beautiful but tiny Mazus reptans.

Seasonal Stream

Turning your ditch into a stream creates a place of interest where it was once an eyesore.

A ditch is a stream of sorts, but it lacks definition. One elegant way to get out of mowing the ditch is to make it into a real, if sometimes dry, stream. Remove the turf and reshape the ditch it so that it narrows and widens periodically as a natural stream might. Add a layer of river rock in the bottom and along the sides. Place a few larger rocks or boulders here and there for interest, and add streamside plants for even more authenticity and to hold the soil where there are no rocks. Irises (Iris sp.) and day lilies (Hemerocallis sp.) are good choices for stream sides, as are some others already listed here. Even in dry times, you get the illusion of a natural stream running through the property, and in wet weather you'll have the real deal.

Concrete Trench With Permeable Cover

If you prefer to keep plantings out of your ditch altogether but dislike the look of a solid concrete ditch, you can simply cover it. Pour a concrete ditch liner, shaped to follow the contour and reinforced with rebar or chicken wire to help prevent cracking. Do not pave over the top few inches of turf on each side of the ditch however, or you may trade drainage problems for mowing. Those natural strips absorb excess water that overflows the concrete trench during peak rainfalls. Lay permeable covering such as wood decking or metal grating end to end over the ditch, to make a level surface that can double as a path. Easily trim any grass that protrudes from the grass strips along the edges with shears or a weed trimmer.