Beginner Gardening: My front hill needs help, 1 by becmg14

becmg14 wrote:
I bought this house a couple years ago, and after trying almost everything to get rid of the ivy on the hill, I am getting closer to having a "blank" canvas to begin landscaping. The problem is I've researched sun, soil, and sizes for plants in my zone, but the people at the nursery don't seem to agree with everything I have read about my plant selections/locations. The hill is west facing and gets very hot FULL sun from late morning to early evening during the summer. Since this picture was taken, I painted the railing black and the front door is yellow.

So here goes...I plan to have a driveway cut into the hill on the left side of the house, and to install a stone wall along the bottom of the hill about 12" high in line with the bottom of the stairs. Where the stone wall meets the driveway, I would like it to turn up the hill on both sides of the driveway as a retaining wall. I was thinking of stacked slate along the bottom of the hill, but since it would probably look best to use the same material for the driveway walls as the front walls, I may decide to use landscape block.

Even though I'm not quite ready to build the driveway/walls yet, I really need to get some plants on that hill. I want a clean and simple landscape. The neighborhood was built on what was an old rock quarry, so there are a few small boulders scattered randomly throughout the hill. Any suggestions would be appreciated.