If you use erosion-control blankets made of biodegrable material, they will eventually disappear leaving the plants to control the problem.

Agricultural engineers have developed the erosion control industry's first cotton hydromulch "spray-on blanket." Hydromulch is the bright-green mulch used in spray-on slurries that cover bare ...

Members of the Nashwaak Watershed Association install an erosion control blanket on the riverbank. (Joe McDonald/CBC News) ...

And then the upper portion of the river bank is covered with a geotextile fabric — an erosion control blanket." Under that blanket are half-metre soil tiers covered in timothy, clover and oat seeds.