Guides · 12 May 2025 · Planted
They look similar on the roll but solve different problems. How we choose between jute matting and jute mesh on a busy NSW civil site.
They look almost identical on the roll - both natural-fibre, both biodegradable, both the colour of a hessian sack. So on plenty of civil jobs they get treated as interchangeable, and the wrong one ends up on the ground. They’re not interchangeable. They solve different problems, and picking the wrong one either wastes money or fails an inspection.
Here’s how we choose between them.
Jute matting: protect the surface on slopes and batters
Jute matting is the dense, felt-like product. Its job is to armour a disturbed soil surface against rain and runoff while vegetation establishes underneath. That makes it the default for slopes, graded batters and any exposed ground that has to survive heavy rain before the planting takes over.
The density is the point: it absorbs rainfall energy, slows overland flow, and holds the soil in place long enough for roots to do the permanent job. On a batter, that’s exactly what you want.
Jute mesh: let water through where it needs to drain
Jute mesh is the open-weave product. Where matting protects a surface, mesh stabilises one that still has to drain. That’s why it’s the right call over sand in rain gardens and infiltration zones - the open weave protects the surface during planting and establishment without choking the infiltration the system was designed for.
Put dense matting over a rain garden and you’ve worked against the asset. Put open mesh on an exposed batter and you haven’t given the surface enough protection. The choice follows the job the ground has to do.
A quick decision guide
- Graded batter or slope, bare soil, has to survive rain → heavy-duty jute matting.
- Rain garden or infiltration zone over sand → jute mesh, installed first, then plant through it.
- Planting straight through the product on a slope → pre-slit jute matting, so you’re not cutting holes on site.
The product is only half of it
Whichever you choose, it only performs if it’s installed correctly: trenched in at the top so the edge can’t lift, overlaps shingled so water runs over them and not underneath, orientation set to the site and the flow, kept in full contact with the ground, and pinned to suit the soil. The right product installed badly fails just as fast as the wrong product.
If you’re not sure which your site needs, that’s usually a sign it’s worth a second set of eyes before the order goes in. We install both across NSW civil, council and developer sites - see erosion control, or send us the site details and we’ll let you know what it needs.
