Show me your planted hills!

[secuono]

We have a hill that we hate to bits, I really want to put up a retaining wall to make mowing easier and less of it as well. It's steep, it's slowly creeping on the drive and there's danged thorny plants from heck in there!

I ~had~ 5 or 6 hydrangeas, from white to red, with pink and light reds mixed between and a red w/white flowers. One got smashed, others were mowed down, those darn thorns and grass hid the small plants in no time flat, mower didn't see them. Mowing the hill rarely gets done, takes so much effort and time, plus mowing it in the summer sun and heat is heck.

So yea, I want to cut out about 3ft and put in a retaining wall, then do something to get rid of the grass and re-add the hydrangeas.
There's a 6 strand barbed wire fence at the top, neighbors fence, I maintain it because I hack away the weeds and thorns, not much harder to keep the fence nice as well.

If you have a similar weird, steep hill, how did you guys deal with it? Any pictures? I'd prefer pictures, visual person.
Thanks!

 

[Nyboy]

GROUNDCOVERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a very steep hill going down to a stream, would be very hard to mow. pachysandra was growing there when I bought the house.It does a great job keeping down the weeds and needs very little care. Lily of the valley and vinca are both great groundcovers that flower. Because they spread so easy people will share them for free most of the time.

 

[so lucky]

Just curious--How much lateral space is between the fence and your driveway? (approx) How long an area are we talking about? If you put up a three foot retaining wall, would the ground still be at a slant, or even with the ground at the fence?

 

[secuono]

There's a plant on a hill up in the next town, no idea what the plant is, but it's pretty and I haven't seen weeds grow through it...I don't like bothering people and asking, they rarely know because no one lives in their houses for long anymore...

Found some pictures. Want to remove the grass/dirt from about 1-2ft on the left side of the wood post.
And yea, I want to do something similar for the other side of the fence hill.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

see if you can get a pic of the plant your talking about and we can try and help ID it for you!

 

[journey11]

From your pics, your hill looks sunny... If you want something NO maintenance, I would go with crown vetch. I personally think it's pretty. The bees love it. It grows thickly and really does a great job keeping all weeds out. It will go for years and never need any attention. You simply mow the perimeter to keep it in check. It can be considered invasive (hard to remove)...so determine if you are wanting a permanent ground cover.

 

[897tgigvib]

I think some pole beans would do great on that hill if you could squirt watwer on the ground for them once or twice a day

 

[Jared77]

What about seeding it with clover? Beautiful white slope of clover would look really nice. LOTS of critters like it too so may help keep them over there. Or give the chickens a place to free range.

Some really good tips on walls here. http://www.renegadegardener.com/ and click on Don't DO That. Scroll down to the Don't DO That archive at the bottom of the page and it has a number of articles on retaining walls if you want to go that route. Many have pictures of what happens when its done how its not supposed to be and the ending result (I think as a motivator to NOT do that). I tried to cut the links to the article but the only link I could get was that one.

 

[secuono]

see if you can get a pic of the plant your talking about and we can try and help ID it for you!

It's 12 miles in the opposite direction, so not sure when I'll be able to get a picture. It was long layered stems with little leaves all along it. I think it's still green in winter.

 

[secuono]

From your pics, your hill looks sunny... If you want something NO maintenance, I would go with crown vetch. I personally think it's pretty. The bees love it. It grows thickly and really does a great job keeping all weeds out. It will go for years and never need any attention. You simply mow the perimeter to keep it in check. It can be considered invasive (hard to remove)...so determine if you are wanting a permanent ground cover.

Actually, the picture doesn't show the mess of trees at the corner. But I think it's fairly sunny for most of it.