One plant that will do well is creeping phlox and ground juniper, don't know the exact name, but my phlox is growing well over a small patch of a steep hill next to the house I'm live in.

Good luck planting on that steep hill. The best thing to do is plant before weeds find themselves a home in it. There is also tulips or other bulb plants and hostas. They are great any where.

I'm curious as to what the front yard looks like to the left of the large rock and tree - more gradual slope up to the house? Can you post a longer shot with a little more of a frontal view.

I envy you the large, mossy rocks. Phlox subulata is very effective in bloom, otherwise it's just a dense green mat. Tulips are deer candy and gradually seem to peter out. Clumps of daffodils are nice but they leave foliage to contend with after blooming. I like the minor bulbs in rocky areas - muscari, crocus, puschkinia, scilla (people love or hate those - I'm in the love 'em column). With the minor bulbs, the foliage tends to splay along the ground after blooming until it disappears entirely. Arctostaphylos uva-ursi "Manhattan" is a good creeper - greeny-bronzy foliage with pink flowers followed by red berries. Sedums of all types, colors and leaf shapes, ferns. A scant bit of soil in crevaces and succulents like hens & chicks do quite well.

Looks to be plenty of space for some blooming shrubs that wouldn't get overly large and hide the rock-work.

I would look into varieties of juniperus horizontalis which are good for holding soil; a specimen Bird's Nest Spruce would do well in a rock garden or a specimen dwarf Globe Blue Spruce.

Suppose the question that should have been asked initially is what kind of look are you going for? The potential is there for something really attractive.

It's Arctostaphylos uva-ursi "Massachusetts" (not Manhattan) that is commonly available.

2 plants that like shade and will spread fast, yet have shallow enough roots that they can be kept under control are variagated lamium and golden creeping jenny. I would use a few hostas and some everbearing day lilies.

Creeping Jenny is bright gold leaved with small yellow flowers, and it hugs the ground and will spill over the rocks.

Lamium has white and green leaves and purple flowers--although it does come in other colors of leaves and flowers--it grows about 1 foot tall.

Day lilies come in many shades and grow about1 to 2 feet tall. Look for the everbearing or repeat bloomers.

Hostas come in a multitude of leaf and flower colors and can be quite tall or quite short.

There are lots of things you could put in there. The only thing you have to do is decide what. I suggest you look at some landscape and plant books. There are some books specifically written for gardening on a slope.

thanks for the help! you gave me a nice place to start and i can begin to figure out what plants, with the suggestions that you have provided will look great and where they will be planted. anyone know of any book titles for landscaping a slope? to the left is actually woods. if you see the gigantic rock, the soil is level with the top of that rock, and it is gras behind all of that. as for the look i am going for....something attractive that will replace the ugliness that used to be my hill. would any sort of small ornamental grasses look good, i am a fan of them, but my wife thinks they look like weeds. hostas are real nice. i intend on planting them elsewhere in my yard as well. again, i appreciate the help. i intend on tackling this project in the spring so i will post some updated pictures.

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here is a pic from 2 1/2 years ago.

This hill looks like it could end up being a major aesthetic advantage, once it has some plants on it. Because you are right next to woods and your rock outcropping has the look of wilderness, I would especially recommend that you look for native plants to put on it. I'm not sure where you live, but if you follow the link below and click on your state name, you should be able to find a good list of native plants that are useul for landscaping purposes.

Some ornamental grasses can definitely look weedy, but I think the larger and more evergreen ones tend to look less weedy. Some large evergreen sedges might be a good choice.

Here is a link that might be useful: Roadside Use of Native Plants

This slope is not so steep that these planters are needed, and all of the little rocks seem to me to distract from the structural focal point of the larger rocks. Do you have any larger rocks in scale with the existing boulders? Think about rock arrangement with supporting plants.

The little walls or borders of smaller rocks seem to me to be forming lines and a texture which is taking away from the strength of what is there.

Also thinnig or limbing up out some of the trees to the left of the huge boulder would add some more interest, as the house becomes more visible.

For plants, well it seems my favorite one recently has been leucothoe girards rainbow! Evergreen takes shade and slopes quite well.

thanks for the suggestions! as for larger rocks, those are the only ones that were there when they built the house. i tried to terrace it a little bit, just to break up the hill. i used some of the rocks surrounding everything to act as sort of an edge, right where it starts to slope. it was to tough to mow and dangerous too. i slipped way too many times. i can always eliminate some rocks as nothing is cemented, just tell me which ones i should discard. off to the left is a large set of woods so i am not sure thinning could be done. i live on a 4 house cul de sac and my house is the only one on the hill and i look down on the whole cul-de-sac.

Hi Where in NH are you? We are Lake sunapee area.

I think you have received good plant advice, the only thing I would add in terms of grasses would be that you could try Hakonechloa macra 'aureola' - japanese forest grass. I think it was perennial plant of the year last year, its a nice low growing (18 in) bright grass that prefers part to full shade. It can also grow in the sun, but it bleaches out. I have found the color is better the more shade it gets.

In terms of design advice, my suggestion would be to pick 2 or three plant types and use groups of those. (For example 5 japanese grass, 7 hosta, 5 astilbe) That would ameliorate the small rock busy -ness that Isabella commented on.

Of course you have the rest of the winter to plan this, because although it was ridiculously warm yesterday it is too late to plant in all of New Hampshire now. At my house the ground is partially frozen.

Your idea will make for a pretty entrance to your property

i live in southern nh right by the mass border: the salem, nh-dracut, ma area. some weather we have been getting the past few days. thanks for all of the advice. this winter i will try to sketch it out and figure out what i want with all of the advice i have recdeived. i'll probably try do it a little at a time over the course of next year as i want to plant some flowers and shrubs along my foundation as well. a lot of projects and which involves a lot of time and money, the latter two my 2 year old manages to swallow up. :)

The plant choices so far are good ones. You have more than enough there to work from. Two small things:
1> Don't mess with the moss, it looks great on the big rocks!
2> Don't pull any of the smaller rocks as someone suggested. They break up the area well. Think instead of a creeper that you can flow over the "walls" you built to even out the flow a bit.

My only question would be what did you do on the RHS of the driveway? You need to make sure you blend both sides of the drive rather than have 2 totally different "feels". IF it is just grass? then you can blend it in with the hill easily by putting in some other rock beds.

Hi, hubes. I like the idea of hostas, ferns, astilbe...check our New Hampshire Hostas online. Don't know if they are near you or not (BTW, my son used to go to camp in NH and what a wonderful place it is). I also like the idea of phlox flowing over the rocks. P. stolonifera will work in shade gardens. PLEASE post pics next spring/summer. Can't wait to see what you do!

Hostas = deer candy.

thanks again for the advice. the right side of the driveway is a hill covered in grass that leads to woods. it is a manageable hill that i can mow w/o any problem at all. as for deer, i only see them in my yard during the winter so hopefully (knocking on wood) they won't eat my flowers.

now that i have a lot of plant suggestions and have taken the time to see what they look like online. i have began to look at pre-existing templates online. have any of you used any of the ones featured on BHG at all?
such as......
http://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/rock/long-blooming-rock-garden-plan/

they are free if you register. registering is also free.