Need options for very steep hill in front of house.
What are some options to place or plant on a very steep hill in front of house? Currently using weed eater which takes hours as it is too steep for a lawnmower. Any ideas on terracing?
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I have seen a house in my neighborhood where the home owner planted day lilies on the hill and other assorted wild flowers, it works and looks great. But be sure to check with your local regulations because some municipalities say it looks unkempt.
From what I've seen, the best route is to plant small, slow growing shrubs. Here's a link to some ideas I found:
https://www.houzz.com/residential-steep-slope-landscaping
Gather newspapers. Once you have the newspapers then mark out areas where you will want to place your shrubs, dig out all of the weeds in a large enoough radius that your plants will not become weed infested again (or plan on pulling weeds around the shrubs as they appear). Choose shrubs that will grow large and spread their branches to (eventually) cover most of the hill. Once your plants are in place, either very carefully spray or place casoron granules in every area where you have not planted your shrubs. Then wet layers of newspaper and lay them over the treated area, leaving the smallish area around your newly planted shrubs uncovered. (I used an old cooler full of water to dunk my layers of newspaper and then laid them on the area.) Once the newspaper is in place (be sure to keep it damp) cover the wet newspaper and under your shrubs with a bark mulch (possibly gravel if bark mulch is unavailable?). I never had a problem with weeds, or even horsetail which is notorious for being difficult to eradicate, in that area. The shrubs grew to cover the hill and kept the weeds from growing. Plastic is often used to cover a hill, but you can't keep a mulch in place on top of it. The beauty of doing it this way is that you can work a section at a time. You can buy cloth that is supposed to keep weeds away, but I haven't found it to be anywhere near as permanent as my casoron/newpaper/mulch.
We had that same problem in front of our previous house. We had a brick wall put in. It worked great and is still standing after 15 years. We included 2 tiers of stone decorative blocks and planted flowering bushes on the tiers. Made a huge difference and cut way down on cutting the grass! We only had to cut the top of the yard up to the steps leading to the front door. It was a huge improvement!
Thanks as this is an excellent option to consider.
To terrace, move your dirt around to form "steps" up your hill. You can make each terrace as high and wide as you wish. You might want them high and narrow to tend like raised gardens. Personally I would make them 6-8" high and 3-4' wide to be able to use them as steps for moving up and down the hill and still be able to reach to the back of the terrace. You can front each with landscape lumber, landscape edging, or native stones. You can lay down weed barrier and mulch of your choice, then I would plant perennials like: spreading yew, day lilies, California poppies, columbine, daisies, ferns, daffodils, iris, tulips, creeping sedum, hen and chicks, or even grass (if you make your terraces wide enough and can figure out a way to get your lawnmower to each tier.
Pending on the layout of your lawn you could install a multi level yard using railroad ties, erosion stones, ect. Also using the extra dirt acquired from digging to set the foundation for the wall and leveling certain places you could tie the different levels together and make it a lot more useable