It's looking at the sunset, beachfront Island Bay, Wellington, NZ
Creator: Sandy Abbot
What. Could. Possibly. Go. Wrong. — internet onlooker
That's what the market will say. But YOU! You know better...
What could go RIGHT!
After a long arduous IT|etc career, living here shouldn't stress you much.
Also, we can fix it all!
You could build a dome over the house, or secure the hill...
We'll focus on securing the hill with ecology of course! It would be a damn shame to see a giant retaining wall here in the bay, aesthetic as it is.
Some agapanthus are already there! People seem to have used that extensively in similar situations around the coast toward Owhiro Bay.
Could probably forget about that species. There's a similar native one... What was it.....
Anyway.
Tagasaste trees are perfect for dry banks.
More greenery, even far above, will ooze fortitude down.
Cactus (Trichocereus *) should really nail things together long term.
Most plants look like their root systems if unrestricted.
They are both fine on the coast.
more random info
Via Google Earth none of it seems very steep?
About one third of a rise over run, or 30°.
Cactus would love some pissfrastructure (urinal -> pump -> hill), whose drip line could be slowly moved uphill to make their roots search for water.
Even just doing this irrigation is likely enough to fix it all. Bonus for not introducing any species!
The soil probably wants some phosphorus, otherwise great. Tagasaste wouldn't mind either way.
Swales seem good, but only small and just by adding material, banks can apparently fall apart after digging at the top.
Basket willow is an up-and-coming tree about NZ, a vast amount of it could be all woven together to form a basket over the whole hillside! Ha. But it's not clear how pestilent it would be there. It seems civilised in Otago.
Tagasaste atop most of all.
They are intensely ectomycorrhizal and canopiating. Unmanaged forests are worth $200/ha/yr with $50/ton carbon sequestration, almost more than cows.
They have seeds ready (turning brown) right now (January|summer).Also to be a bit careful, you'd want ongoing soil salinity tests (easy) over time (10-50 years) to ensure they're not pumping salty water up there - they can bring water up from 30m deep and irrigate their community, apparently (I lost this exact source, help?). Maybe they'd bring salt? They've been a stone's throw from the sea before, but everything there was salt adapted anyway so dunno.
Also, if we build the soil, salt spray would be less likely to rinse out of it...
So perhaps lid some soil amongst tagasaste, and also some soil not amongst tagasaste, and then figure out what's going on from all that data. Science wormhole, but it would be good to confirm this 30m welling factoid, it was a bit loose iirc, mentioned in only one of the many cool papers on this tree. There's 8-60m elevation that we could potentially find a salt gradient over...
Here are some I'm growing, they must be drilled in with a 30-40mm auger, which is not much clay to break.
The unevenness of this batch is my fault due to slugs and dodgy housing early on, I think.
The unevenness of this batch is my fault due to slugs and dodgy housing early on, I think.
You'd want more air around and under the tubes to keep the tubes more together - they got a bit slimy on me in this old fish crate - but not too together since they've gotta blur into the ground when installed...
Perhaps you'd want to rip off the top portion of the tube once installed, so it doesn't wick moisture out of the hole?
More on this technique when I've got it more correct. So far so good - these had nice simple foot-long root systems going on.
Hope this helps.
