Show me your planted hills!

[secuono]

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.

I was going to use pallets and line them with landscape cloth which will let water go though. Would that not be ok?

 

[April Manier]

creeping phlox, vetch, ....
stay away from vinca. It spreads too much

 

[secuono]

What about tilling the hill, heavy hay/straw mulch and then planting a ton of Lily bulbs?

 

[897tgigvib]

Hay Sec, some Lilies propagate not just by the bulb dividing, but some also make a bunch of little bulbs up and down their stems. Plant a few one year, have a bunch of little ones to work on growing the next. those little tykes take a few years to bloom...but it's cheaper. oh. after awhile you can have tons more to sell...

 

[catjac1975]

Blue grape hyacinths spread well and are gorgeous for several weeks in spring.

 

[digitS']

I would enjoy experimenting with a hillside for terracing. Now, I'm just an olde guy fantasizing here so you may want to pay no attention to me. I have never, ever gardened on a hillside . . . but, just imagine those terraced hillsides in Southeast Asia . . . .

Those terraces may have been there for many years but they require continual maintenance. Moreover, they started from somewhere. I have some idea of how they started and it is a fairly simple process. Like many things, there are layers of skill going into simple processes which result in success in life.

Here is what hoe agriculturalists do with a virgin hillside. They work their way from the bottom . . . up, up, up! As they go up, with their heavy hoes, the soil surface is pulled down a couple feet, or so. Weeds and such are buried at the feet of the gardener. So, it is dig, dig, dig - puuullll the trash to where they last dug - then, pull some good soil over the top of the trash. Step on the buried trash. Repeat . . . reach out with the hoe and dig, dig, dig ~ puuullll the trash to where they last dug ~ then, pull some good soil over the top of the trash. Step on the buried trash.

In time, there is less weeds in the trash and less of a need to work in tiny steps up the hill. The steps can be widened and terraces take the place of steps.

Steve

 

[secuono]

Our pasture is like that, two hills are impossible for a riding mower to do w/o risk of flipping. It would be cool to do a terrace on them, whether just for grazing and easy mowing or large steps and have fruit trees. But Idk if there would be enough light for the trees. I was thinking of planting the other fruit trees down the hill so I won't have to mow, just mulch it all.

 

[secuono]

Hay Sec, some Lilies propagate not just by the bulb dividing, but some also make a bunch of little bulbs up and down their stems. Plant a few one year, have a bunch of little ones to work on growing the next. those little tykes take a few years to bloom...but it's cheaper. oh. after awhile you can have tons more to sell...

Yup, was hoping to split them and make the whole hill nothing but Lily the other night. Would be far cheaper than the hydrangeas and easier to sell online and at swaps. Need to find someone with waste straw that can deliver now...

 

[Jared77]

The homeowner backfilled the wall with soil, skipping the only mildly laborious step of backfilling the wall with an eight-inch-wide trough of 3/4 inch clear (meaning washed) gravel.

This is necessary not only here in true gardening country, Zone 4, where winter frost in soil causes stone to move, but should be a part of stone wall construction in warmer climes. Even in Zone 8, if you wish to construct a stone retaining wall taller than 24 inches, you really should install drainage gravel behind it. A heavy rain will turn soil to mud, and once soil turns liquid, its lateral push is remarkable. In Texas, for a wall this size, it might not wash out all at once, but it will slowly move, gaps will form, and in a decade or so it will resemble the wall pictured. Youll enjoy hammering the stones back into place with a dead blow stone hammer for only so long. And eventually, they dont go back in all the way.

For large boulders, a gravel drainage trough behind the wall is not necessary only landscape fabric, to keep the backfill soil from flowing out the face of the wall. Boulders weighing 150 pounds or more are heavy enough to stay in place without drainage gravel, even in northern zones. Plus they usually involve a bit of a setback. But for boulder walls using small boulders, 12 inches or less, setback or no, if you get up around 24 inches high, you need to create a gravel drainage backing, because the small boulders dont weigh enough to stay in place. Theyll move and collapse after repeated exposure to rain or irrigation, anywhere in the country.

That's cut and pasted right from The Renegade Gardeners website. http://www.renegadegardener.com/

He has a picture where the wall shifted and bricks came loose making the wall collapse. The pallets are only going to allow dirt to pack inbetween the ends of the pallet and still hold water. Plus the wood will rot, creating a softer area that will weaken the wall further making it shift even easier.

I had a wicked hill where I lived for a while. I couldn't use a push mower on it because it would flip over, let alone my riding mower it was THAT steep. What made it worse was it went down to a small drainage ditch that ran along the road. So it was more of an embankment it was dangerous. I literally had to weed whack the width of my property to keep it down. It was a nightmare.

I have since moved but I had always thought of putting in a bunch of day lillies and letting them anchor the hill. They can just about out compete anything that pops up there. Just like you had mentioned earlier in your post I had that exact same thought. It would take a while but once you get them going you could keep dividing them, adding more when you see a deal on them and have a pretty good collection of them in no time. You could also add Iris in there thats another one that would anchor the soil, could keep dividing and get a big patch of it. Comes in a bunch of colors and blossom types. Different leaf shape and bloom times would make for a nice mix of inexpensive plants to keep the hill in check. I wouldn't even till up the hill. Id weed whack an the area I wanted to plant, plant, water, and once established let them do their thing. I'd even put up an add on Craigslist asking for whatever people would otherwise get rid of when they divide them in the spring. Worth a try. Most folks just want them gone. You could have a rainbow of colors by just randomly mixing them up and planting them. I think it could look really beautiful and it wouldn't really cost you that much. Just time. Lot cheaper than a retaining wall.

edited to add you could cruise around and look for people leaving boxes of daylilies and Iris on the curb which was a common practice in my neighborhood growing up. People would often leave them out for someone to pick up even if it was the garbage man. Also what about cruising the back roads looking for ditch lilies.

 

[secuono]

Another reason I want to put the wall up is that there isn't enough room for two cars, I've already made a 1.5 wide mud trail and the hill is slowly encroaching. It needs to be pushed back. I'll email a few companies and get price quotes for it being done professionally.
But if the pallet and just paper won't work, I can add gravel behind/in the pallet and then have dirt/hill. I'll just need to use a board to keep both separate while filling.
It doesn't have to last forever anyway, next people may hate a retaining wall and tear it down. When I lived in suburbia, growing up, people were always moving in and out, would demo what others have done. Whether it was professionally and nicely done, the next owners don't care, they want it their way. People rarely buy a house because it's what they want, it's what's the cheapest and then change it to fit them.


Yes, I used plywood to kill grass...We haven't mowed for the winter this year...sorry. Our mower broke and by the time we fixed it, it was too cold to bother until spring.

These grow every year at the corner post hill section. I don't know what plants they are.

The lilies we bought.