Steep terrain planting ideas...

Now here is another specific feature of my place, which I would like to address in greater detail.
The front part of the garden is lined up with fence netting and there is a segment of about 20 m (65,61679790026247 ft :D) that I am concerned with.
Nothing is 'beautiful', the street and the entire neighbourhood infrastructure are in a deplorable condition and it's mostly due to the greediness of developers, who would like to ruin/depopulate the area and get hold of some property 'for free' (and other nonsensical stuff ).

The fence line is at the south-east part of the yard and the terrain slides down steeply (almost vertically) to a level lower by 1.80 m, and then by another two lower-height 'terraces' to reach an ultimate level difference of about 2.90 m at the walls of the house.
Therefore, the entire garden unfolds in the shade of the slope and I don't want to hear about any gigantic plants, trees or hedging along the fence. :D

All levels have retaining walls (which have probably been built by my husband’s grandparents). The two highest 'beds' are retained by dry river stone and planting these is my actual concern. (The other one is the lower border of the garden, it is dry and shaded under two huge 70-year old chamaecyparis trees and lined by a box hedge).
There are several issues I face about the planting and maintenance of this area:

1. Unless all the bare area is covered with plants with spreading roots, some soil is always washed down with the rain.
2. I can feed plants only by spraying their foliage.
3. Higher growing flowers (above 25-30 cm) tend to creep up and face the sun.
For this reason, as the slope is being usually approached and eyed from below, all you see is... lavish green foliage and scarce blossom.
This is what I want to change most.

I've started populating the slope with rockery and alpine plants: pulsatilla nigricans, variegated arabis ferdinandii, dianthus (unknown varieties), phlox subulata, aubrieta, campanula portenschlagiana, alyssum, acantholimon etc. in the hope that it will gradually transform into a mosaic of densely flowering patches intermingled with some 'ornamental foliage' groundcovers and evergreens, such as lysimachia nummularia, variegated ivy, lamiastrums, ajania pacifica, juniperus varieties, euonymus fortunei, which I have planted lower to overgrow the stone wall. In the very sunny parts I have some sempervivums. The top line has some lonicera nitida shrubs, still quite young. I prune them now and then to encourage dense branching until they are big enough to be shaped.

So, I will appreciate any ideas on how to add some ornamental value to the 'terraces', provided they face the north-west?
Here are some pictures.

The whole thing (almost) as it looked this autumn after clearing the annuals. The entire bed of strawberries below was cleaned and replanted some time later.



June 2010, first preparation...
Lonicera and weeds. There was a 'crater' :WINK1: below, which has cement bottom and walls and was previously used to contain water. Now the bottom is perforated and it's levelled with soil and can drain.


After my radical intervention and... first signs of life.

But you can see the tree trunks showing what my husband had to clear just a couple of weeks before.


There's a little shed we use for barbecue in the summer and some cleaning was done on the other side, too, in the early spring of 2011 to plant the first roses.
Before...


Still working...


Finished for then.


Latest developments' 2011: My husband decided to cut in little steps along the entire 'pile of stones', also on the other side, so that I could actually stop 'creeping' upwards and jumping down.


First colour on the other side, but these 'miniature' roses grew too high*. The sempervivums group.


This rose seems more suitable.


Euonymus, easily planted by just removing a stone and then fitting it back in its hole. Strangely enough, they hold.


The tree trunks have become very beautiful.






There are lots of big gaps to fill and accomplish and I belive that 'trying' what works will help me get as near to a 'concept' as possible, but any suggestions about plants suited for this 'vertical' alignment will be most welcome!





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* A friend, who's in the gardening market, told me that traders often cheated by applying growth inhibitive substances on 'normal' roses, which diminished distance between joints by 10x-15x. They looked cute to sell in little pots, but you had to grow a 'miniature' rose for at least three seasons to make sure it won't climb to the roof of your house.

 

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/components/08464-steep-slopes.pdf

 

Thanks 'dim'! Fast and comprehensive as ever!
I read your list thoroughly, and you managed to get me interested.
By the way, what does the abbreviation spp. stand for?
For instance, Hemerocallis spp.


And here is another view of the same corner in mid-summer, 2011, when it was just beginning to look genuinily wild.

 

That's a lovely garden you have there Angelina. You've put in some hard work on it.

 

Thank you, JWK! I figured it out.

I will probably have to open another thread on the Bulgarian 'gardening scene', but contextually, there isn't much to rely upon. The neighbourhood are not really keen on garden maintenance. It's an alpine and rocky area, tough to work it. It's shady, the land literally breeds stone and every year you have to fill in new soil here and there and, after it rains, collect nice little stones by hand. :D
However, nearby I have people who are really keen gardeners, and very educated ones. Actually, one of them has an incredible garden, which I saw last year. I didn't have a good camera then, my old one was broken. This garden contains the largest private collection of azaleas and rhododendrons in Bulgaria, but it also has a rocky part and in the forthcoming season I will take a closer look and also pictures. I'll show. One plant I'm after is cornus canadensis. (I was promised one. :D)

The garden is a marvel! But both my local advisers have some sort of 'aversion for the internet'... One of them is about my age and he seems to be afraid to touch a computer. They don't live near enough for me to 'shout over the fence', so I will have to run there, visit and 'digitalise' their capital (for the benefit of all ).

To me at least, forums like this one are a much richer source of ideas.

 

You have 'managed' your garden very well Angelina. The plant choices look lovely. I also have several steep, sloping areas on the land that need working on. The worst thing is digging out stuff on a slope. You can't get much of a hold to pull, and then you're likely to go over backwards down the hill. It would almost be better to use rock climber's gear.

 

Angelina - I must have missed this thread somehow. Its so nice to see pictures of your garden. I love the idea of the terraces rising like a stadium in front of you.

There are so many ways of looking at gardens and gardening that I confuse myself on a regular basis. I want to go off in all directions at the same time.

Your terraces suggest two different things to me. You can either treat them like a normal garden full of different plants, or you can treat them as one single picture and forget the idea of plantsmanship.

I have never tried the second view but I would love to do so if I has a series of narrow terraces rising up. Some of your terraces look wide and some look narrow - so I can't quite work out the geography. The single picture approach that I would love to try goes like this:-

If you just planted one single long flowering plant such as Centranthus rubra along each and every terrace, all you would see rising up in front of you would be a mass planting of colour. I suspect that the result would be very dramatic. ie one single dramatic picture to be seen from the bottom but with no thought of plantsmanship. Rather than only one plant you could have a few different plants, but in very big blocks repeated to fill the entire area. But the emphasis would be on long flowering plants that ran together in solid blocks. The picture could be stunning - but its the opposite end of gardening from having lots of different plants







Really this is just a variant on Piet Oudolf but made more dramatic by the terracing effect. The pictures above are of his gardens. I love that first picture. Not many different plants - but I defy you to find many garden views to beat that.

I would love to have a garden big enough to be able to try something like that. In some ways its art rather than gardening. It may not be practical, but I feel that being aware of the concept may help somewhere in our garden designs.

 

Thanks for addressing it, Peter.
This is actually what I was thinking of while reading your 'raised beds' description. But your terrain is rather urbanised, accomplished and sophisticated :WINK1: and mine is really closer to having a 'geography' rather than 'design'. :D

Here is a lame drawing, which doesn't say too much, but shows the exposure and the direction of the slope. (Don't look at the red lines and dots they account for other things.)



The two stripes in the lightest nuance of gray (1 and 2) are the steepest part. Level 1 is about 2 m above level 2 and almost vertical, rather narrow.
'Terrace' 2 is wider with a summer shed marked as a rectangular shape (smaller in the drawing than in reality).
The area left of the summer shed is dappled shade.
For the time being, I'm concerned with the area to the right of the shed. It appears in the first photo from my sequence above.
In the same photo (at level 2), you can see another 'rectangular hole'. It is not yet fully shaped, but is cemented and was intended to contain water from a nearby mountain spring which flows under the shed (the catchment is uphill). We've had the spring for a long time and the water is really great for drinking. We did lab testing and certified it. Unfortunately, the electricity company did some digging in the street just above the shed in late summer and the flow of water diminished slightly. And now, in mid winter, it stopped completely. They have probably damaged it. :(
I mention this, because this cemented container will have to be reshaped or entirely disappear, if the spring water is not recovered.

Therefore all my questions for now cover:
* the steepest level 1 - the entire line on the right side of the shed.
* the rightmost half of level 2

Same. :D

I want to treat them both ways.



1. DIFFERENT PLANTS: May - end June
All rock garden plants, which I have put there (listed in the first post, but none is seen yet) will be likely to provide flowering coverage of the steep and stony area by early July. I want them to crown and creep in the clefts of the stones, but to wrap around and outline their shape, rather than overgrow them. The colours are purple, pink, blue, white, and a cluster of crazy low-height alliums, one of which is yellow, and a dwarf size hemerocallis (again yellow).
Rhododendrons can contribute greatly to the May-June span of the season:


...and other shade lovers, as the slope faces north-west:


And for the sunnier exposure:






2. 'Single picture approach' (10x for the tip!) - second part of season MID-JULY - LATE OCTOBER.

When all phlox, dianthus, alliums and tiny little scattered stone-carpeting actors have faded I will have a serene and rather boring view of stones intermingled with rosettes of leaves and other foliage, but no (or hardly any) flowering on the highest terrace.
So, level 1 can work as a 'background' or a 'frame' for the single picture you suggested and it will appear on the broader lower terrace (no. 2 in the drawing).

I want to entrust it mainly to annuals, so that I can change it every season.
To be honest, I don't know which plant(s) will qualify as The Plant(s) for the scheme. :D

Centrantus ruber is not at all popular here and I have never seen it 'live'. I just browsed seed seller sites, but in vain. I can buy single potted plants (one or two nurseries offer them) or ask friends on the Bulgarian forum, but your point was that I need to have the plants in large numbers, to ensure the impact.

Out of everything on the list for sowing this season, I will have to choose - depending on which seeds germinate in sufficient quantities. And I want to further limit myself to those which (a) get about 70 cm - 1 m high; and, as the slope faces north-west the plants have to (b) grow upright and have a flower cluster symmetrical to the axis of the stem: any spike flowers or some liliums are a perfect example.

All others, like dahlias, sunflowers, etc. with single large heads tend to bend and twist towards the sun, hence all view from the bottom level will be lost. I had this problem last summer!

I also would love to have some ornamental grass at this level, probably Stipa Tenuissima, to mix with The Plant(s).

Thank you for the pictures you suggested. And, mainly, for the approach.

Most likely, the results of all my 'theorising' will not show this season. Of course, I will work towards it, but my sowing effort may end up in smaller numbers of plants than needed.
Anyway, in autumn I will have a wider range of seeds to harvest and choose from, including ones I've never mentioned on the forum.

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This was a lot of writing, and I still have to look up certain words when reading posts, like the common names of flowers, technical things or the term 'plantsmanship' , etc. So it's a real strain for me to amass the appropriate vocabulary and immediately start using it, but I like the exercise. :D.

 

Angelina - I have only just seen your last post whilst exploring the new software. I used to click 'todays posts' in the last software several times a day - but I am sure it missed lots of items.

Your diagram makes the garden much clearer. I assume that the house is at the bottom and the circles and rays represent the different views.

I like the pictures you have shown at the bottom. When I started I had no idea what I wanted, so I just looked through loads of pictures in books (in bookshops) until I found scenes that I liked. And I then tried to get that effect in my garden.

I can't offer any suggestions for low growing plants as any that I had, got overgrown by more thugish plants. I really only know the plants that I grow. Some of my favorites are :-


A very simple Primula from seed. I suspect that fancy Primula may not be so robust. I like these because they do well on my soil. They flower early when there isn't anything else about, then they go dormant and allow other bigger plants to grow over them with no apparent ill effects.


Astrantia. This is a reliable hardy plant that just keeps on coming back. It flowers early, but I like it because it flowers for a very long period. This is A. 'Hadspen Blood' which is very dark, but there are pink ones and white ones as well. They are woodland plants so are happy in part shade.


This is the Centranthus ruber that I like so much. Its really just a wild flower, and I am sure many people will look down on it. But I love the colour and it flowers for ages and ages, then you cut it back and within three weeks its in flower again. It has to be grown from seed as it has a tap root (very deep single thick root). And for this reason it can't be moved, but the long root makes it very drought resistant.


Hesperis matronalis. This is virtually a wildflower. Its a biennial that self seeds itself everywhere on my sister's sandy soil, but I grow fresh plants from seed every year rather than trust to self seeding.

 

Thank you, Peter. I saw your reply after you posted it, but had no time to write.

Concerning the terraced part of the place, I would not go for such tall plants as the last three you suggested, although I would embrace any opportunity of having centrantus and astrantia of the colour you've shown. They would go to other places, however.

Hesperis... I think I've just learned the name of that 'thing' :WINK1: , which overgrows the wild gully in our woodland vicinity. I don't feel very inclined to have it, but at least I have a good reason to watch it more closely now (and snatch a fresh supply of plants, in case I reconsider).

I do love the primulas!
We don't have such a brick or purple red variety here (to Bulgarians yours would be 'fancy' ). And in the seeds market we mainly have 'mixes' with this colour included. I have also grown a mix from seed and they bloomed last year. This spring I'm waiting for a bloom of primula denticulata and primula vialii. I also purchased a potted plant of primula japonica. This is my bunch of a local alpine variety:


Later in the season, I will start Primula x tommasinii you & me blue and Primula polyanthus Discovering Stripes mix.

I have purchased and planted some other interesting colours, but I don't know whether they've made it through the winter.

At this rate of growth and taken the space I have to fill, my primula stock has to ensure me a decent coverage..., 'when I'm 64'.

Thanks for the input again!

 

Angelina, also look at planting plenty evergreen to keep the area looking good in the colder months, especially in the shadier areas

look at ferns .... there are some really nice very hardy ones (especially the dryopteris family) .... and some look like tree ferns (check dryopteris complexis) ...

and there are some huge ones such as the ostrich fern (not evergreen), and grows up to 2m tall in it's natural habitat

 

No advice to offer, but just wanted to say that your garden looks beautiful. All the hard work you and your husband have put in has paid dividends

I would love to see photos of that if you ever get any

 

Oh, yes, I will get! I met the guy and his family last week, and I told him I had a new and better camera. And I have acquired a very beautiful variety of peonies to bring as a gift for his garden (Prairie Charm). There is a lot to learn there!

Dim, on your point of ferns: I grow some local variety, which is not tall and tree-like, but is quite nice. The taller plants to use as a background for the shadier parts will be the rhododendrons and hydrangeas. However, I ordered some Athyrium Niponicum Pictum from a local company, and yesterday they called me to say the ferns had arrived and I could go to collect them on Wednesday. I also ordered some hardy mix spores from the Chilterns, although I don't know how successful I will be in propagating them.


Thank you for your support and comments!