Hi there,

I'm a longtime apartment dweller who is a new, first-time homeowner. More relevant to this discussion, I'm a first-time garden owner, and I'd like to hear your suggestions on designing a hillside garden with these plants. I have my layout narrowed to two designs that I sketched out, but I'm curious what others might think.

The area: It's a hillside that rises above a flat part of my backyard, so it mostly will be admired from afar (i.e. from the patio or pool). It's about 24' wide and about 20' deep (I could go a little deeper, but that would cut into space I plan to use for shrubs or a privacy hedge.) The hillside is at about a 45-degree angle.

I opted for a cool color palette, with purples, blues and pale peach, yellow and pink. Here are the plants I have to work with:

* 3 dianthus itsaul white, 12"

* 3 chrysanthemum clara curtis, 14"

* 1 coreopsis moonlight, 15-18"

* 3 lavendula munstead, 15-18"

* 2 lavendula blue cushion, 16"

* 3 lavendula provence, 24-36"

* 3 echinacea prairie splendor, 24"

* 1 echinacea milkshake, 30"

* 1 echinacea summer sky, 34"

* 1 eryngium sapphire blue, 28"

* 1 baptisia starlight prairieblues, 36-60"

* 3 digitalis purpuea apricot beauty, 48"

* I also have two large batches of shasta daisies and have 5 lime-green hybrid lilly trebbiano bulbs (36-48") that can be incorporated, though I would have no problem using any/all of these elsewhere