new landscape challenge!?

I will post 2 pics but here is the problem--a big one. I am in zone 6b. western NC. I have a almost non-landscaped sloping property and I am from the flatlands. The yard here is about 25' deep (from top of ditch to deck) and about 47' long that I want to do something with. The slope described is, starting at the top and from bottom of deck rail to ground 18 inches and at the bottom end of the deck 7 feet high from ground to deck bottom. The ground slopes both towards the drainage ditch and downward longways of the yard. Oh, I put a red blob on my candidate poster in the yard as I thought I couldn't post it with it showing but did not want to go to the hassle of removing and replanting it. I hope you can't tell who it is. Well, maybe I do but it would not be 'kosher' here.
What I want to do is create a raised area in the middle of the yard between the tree on the left and the driveway and plant greenery and maybe a few flowers. But my main problem is the drainage/erosion issue and the drainage ditch. A friend told me to fill the ditch entirely with river rocks and put a grate over the drain holes so that I can lift it if need be to clean it in future. Of course, this sounds pretty expensive to me and there are lots of leaves that fall from across the road in the fall. I had thought about killing the weeds and grass and putting in some kind of ground covers or plants that would fill in the area entirely. But then I have the erosion/drainage problem not solved. A lot of moss is growing in the yard and I do not want to have grass there. Moss would be OK but I need to get the few grass twigs and weeds out. Any ideas at all for the overall plan? I will appreciate any advice--keeping in mind the limited budget of a retiree and a female with no muscle help except very occasional friend/family visits.

second photo = drainage ditch. maybe 3 feet or more at deepest part.

Sorry, the rotation did not hold. it works better if you could see the ditch pic rotated left. At the lower part of the photo is a large pipe that goes underground and then comes out again to the ditch that goes all the way down and around the property of 1+ acres, most on a slope. Thanks again.

Given limited $$ and physical strength, I'd probably consider leaving the yard sloped rather than trying to do a raised area in the middle. You can plant some shrubs or perennials or whatever you want, and if you plant a good groundcover around the shrubs, etc in the area where you have erosion issues I think that ought to hold.

As far as the drainage ditch, you might find out first if you're even allowed to do anything to it. If it belongs to the city/county in any way then they may not want you messing with it. If it's your own drainage system that was installed by you or a previous owner though then you should be able to do what you want to it. You might consider planting a rain garden in it if you're allowed to do things to it.

The ditch is part of private property. The private road maintenance is shared by one neighbor just above. Previous owner/builder constructed it. I will need to look up 'rain garden' but you may be right about the shrubs and so on. Thanks for your ideas.

Hi we have slope issues as well. We live on a corner lot which give us slopes on 3 sides of our porperty. They have a variety of slope. We had a patio put in in the back, you could do the same kind of thing put in for a flat garden and the wall wouldn't need to be as high. The stone work is the most expensive part of our landscape so you might want to try a few of the other things I have done.

Anyway the first photo. You can see the flat area and some of the garden beyond.

Another photo. I put in an L shaped garden just where the slope gets steeper. At the far end of the hill where the garage is I have started to put in shrubs. These are going in by cutting a hole in the lawn and mowing around them.

When I put a new garden area in I do not take the grass out to avoid erosion and let the grass decompose into the soil.

I work two various ways. If it is not to steep an area I lay 5-6 layers of newspaper down in the shape of the garden cover it with farmpost (an aged mixture of horse manure and bedding straw) and plant right into that by moving the farmpost aside, cutting a spot in the newspaper, planting and tucking the stuff back around it.

On a very steep hill the newspaper won't stay in place so I cover the garden area with black plastic and leave it there for several weeks until the grass is dead, I then put 3-4 " of farmpost down, a layer of burlap gets staked over that and a 1" layer of farmpost to cover the burlap and the do the planting.

In this photo I planted directly into the grass and am waiting for the plants to kill the grass.

An area I have yet to tackle.

This is one the black plastic is used first. Last fall I started to extend this one by making it 4' wider. The burlap is on and a few plants in it before I tore my rotary cuff and couldn't do any more work.

I am going about this slowly because of lack of extra cash and a physical restriction.

My version of a rain garden we put it in to catch run off, but it isn't a true raingarden. It is dug down in the center, we had to keep it level with the sidewalk on the edges so anyone that might stray off of the sidewalk.

I'm assuming this is the shady side of the house? I missed it if you said so but I see several hosta and it looks pretty dark. :)

My very first thought would be a lower level deck, beneath the front door. You could use lattice to decorate/cover up the big gap under the taller part of the original decking. My second thought would be a pond to the left, beneath the door with gardens or even a sloping waterfall to the left. It should not be too hard or too expensive if you use retaining block. Another thought is using more smaller trees or larger shrubs as an under planting with that larger tree, in the same area.

If you could get someone to cut railroad ties in half for you (or you can with a chainsaw), placing those strategically could help with maneuvering the hill on foot.

For the ditch, could you put in one of those big black tiles like they use under driveways? It would still drain then and also bring the yard up to road level.

Ornamental grasses and daylilies do a good job on erosion control. You might consider placing a few large rocks or landscape ties like terraces for a back bone and leveling places to walk then plant those beds with your ground covers or plants for erosion control. Here is a list from Classy Groundcover: http://classygroundcovers.com/cat--Erosion-Control--ErosionControl

I'm still on my first cup of coffee. LOL

Zen, that is one heck of a drop off! I can see why you haven't tackled it yet. ;)

You could do vines all along the deck by putting up lattice or stretching plastic fishing line from the ground to the deck.

You use a heavy fishing line tying a knot every foot or so to give the vine something to hold on to. You tie one end to a sod staple to keep it in the ground and tie the other end it to an eyelet at the spot on the deck where you want it to go.

Badseed, Our posts crossed. Yes it is a very difficult one. To top it off it is on the North side and we get wind whipping across there in the winter. Right now my 60 year old DH is mowing it and think it is time for him to retire from that. He is in great shape, but still.

Ack! I can't imagine it is fun nor safe to mow that monster. We had slopes at the other house that were a bear to mow so I took out the grass and made beds. Luckily they were full sun so plant choices were very easy!

I don't dare take the grass out, the hill would wash away before any plants could take hold. I need to find a very aggressive ground cover that will smother the grass out. It has a 98º slope. I can't even crawl up it. We can't terrace it because there is a lovely old Oak tree there that would die if we took that much of its roots away.

Yeah, nuking the grass at once would probably be ugly. Thinking...Aegopodium, Lirope, Creeping Phlox?? Better you than me. LOL

I wasn't familiar with Lirope that would be nice to add to the mixture. I want to put several things in. I was just talking to a friend that is getting rid of a bunch of Aegopodium I will ask her to pass it on to me if she hasn't already promised it to someone.

lilacs and lavender is a few things that would love the sharp drainage. the lilacs would fill in quite a bit and be rather carefree.

I stumbled across this thread somewhat late but am planning to replace grass on a 45 degree slope at the front of my yard. Went looking for biodegradable landscape fabric and came up with this:

http://www.ecocover-america.com/landscape-mulch-organic-biodegradable.htm

It's paper mat mulch that can be fastened to the ground with landscape staples, and holes punched through for new plants. Scroll down the page and see photos where it has been used on slopes. I've used newspaper for this purpose on flat surfaces but I think newspaper on a slope would be a nightmare, so hopefully this stuff will work out well for me.

Last I looked Gardener's Supply had this listed in a catalog, but I'm going to look around and see who else has it as they are a bit pricey sometimes.

The ecocover sounds great. I didn't have any luck finding a place to buy it in the USA. Please keep us informed if you do. I will do the same.

Newspaper works fine on a slope, really no harder than dealing with it on a flat surface unless the hill is so steep that you have trouble navigating it (but you'd have that issue with putting down the ecocover stuff too). You'll have to put mulch or something down over it to keep it from blowing away, but you'd have to do that on flat ground too, it's really not any different.

You have had better luck than I have. I tried newspaper and I just slid on it. I have used newspaper on my other hills. On the site for the ecocover they are using a ladder on a steep hill I think I will try that. Whatever I use will have to be pinned down. The mulch slides too. This is the hill I am talking about.

My hills are a lot longer than yours, but not quite as steep, I don't have trouble with mulch sliding down it so that's probably the difference. The hill in my backyard was getting close to that steep in places so I had it terraced instead of keeping it as a hill, it was just too hard for me to work on it (and since it was a fairly long hill, if I fell it would not have been good!) But the hill in my front yard is manageable to climb around on so I left it rather than having it terraced.

That probably is it. I would have mine terraced if it didn't mean cutting the roots of the big oak at the top. It is just out of the photo at the top of the hill.

Zen - do you still have those pottery beads in your yard? Those were so gorgeous
a

alyrics, yes I do have the beads in the yard. I have started a third one that will go into my front yard. When I am out working I get lots of people stopping to talk about them.

Crick hopefully you are getting something out of this hill conversation. I checked Gardeners Supply for the ecocover and they have a roll 3' x 50' for $14.95 plus shipping. They are having a 10% off sale for fathers day. I wonder if a roll of brown paper that is made of recycled materials would work just as well? It would require research into what it is made of and what the process is.

Crick's hill doesn't look even as steep as my hills, so I think newspaper ought to work fine too. The rolls of paper might go down a little faster, but if saving money is more important than saving time then newspaper's the way to go.

Yes I would agree the roll paper if for steep hills.

I may go ahead and use burlap to hold the farmpost down like I usually do. I will just have to do a small area at a time.