WHAT SHOULD WE DO?? Does this take a plumber to come out and have to weld off the piece and put a new piece on?? I mean I am handy, but never tackled welding!

HELP!!!

We have a picket fence separating the back part of our property from the front. It's about midway along our house, extending from the house to the fence along the property line. The picket fence is about 8 to 9 feet long.

In front of the picket fence, going toward the front of the house, the ground slopes sharply upward until it reaches the front corner of the house, where it becomes flat again. There are bushes at the top of the incline, so the area is essentially boxed in. The whole area measures roughly 8-9 feet by 20 feet.

So we can't access the area very easily, though I can squeeze through the bushes and clamber down the small incline to reach it. We don't need the area for anything. My husband doesn't want to use it for storage -- putting a small shed in there for the lawnmower and garden tools -- and it's shady, so I can't use it for a vegetable garden. And it can't be seen from the street.

There are two reasons I want to make it look prettier, however. It's directly outside a bedroom window, so I want there to be a nicer view, and the neighbors can see it very well.

I was thinking of planting something there that would require little or no work. Hydrangeas were one thought, since they do well in shade and bloom on their own year after year. I would plant them along the fence along the property line. There is already ivy in this little area, so I thought of keeping it trimmed between the hydrangeas and the house -- it would cover the ground and prevent erosion on the slope.

Does anyone have other ideas for this neglected, unnecessary part of our property that nevertheless needs to look better?