There is a hillside at the back of our property, approximately 50 yards long and 30 wide. The rise is steep, but walkable.

We own halfway up, and a church owns the rest of it. It is unused and non really visible to them.

Two years ago we removed all the Norway maples from our part of property, put down very thick layers of newspapers and mulched. That worked very, very well at controlling weeds. Last year, we fell behind on weeding and keeping after the maple saplings and seedlings and this year the neglect is showing: an invasion of annual weeds, suckers around the old stumps, new maple seedlings, and worst of all, mean, lean nasty thorn seedlings: I am nearly sure they are wild raspberries.

Every where there is that good sunshine we created out of shade, a sunloving weed is trying its best- and succeeding- at filling in. It is nature's way, but I need a plan to follow over the years.

First: I am not interested in gardening the top half of the hill that belongs to the church, although I am willing to clear, plant groundcovers to minmimize progression of weeds from that part of the property to mine. I have way too much garden as it is.

Second: I'm sorely tempted to use round up, but the lower half of the hillside is planted with very nice plants: specimen trees and shrubs for wildlife and us to enjoy in future years. So I'm afraid of drift.

Third: I have bees. Happy happy bees near that help my garden. As I write this, I realiZe I could move the hive if I spray, but that would not make them or me very happy. In any case, any plan includes the 50,000 residents of said hive.

Fourth,

I have been using corn gluten meal in my perennial beds, I think it is a pretty good pile of baloney. It needs to be reapplied every couple of weeks, is labor intensive and absurdly expensive. Never the less, I have a huge bag of it left. And, new supply of preen. I do know both these are pre-emergent herbicides or germination inhibitors, and I know the difference between these and post-germination weed killers.

So, please,

I need a plan to deal with the seeding weeds from the uncultivated land above my new hillside garden, as well as how to mininmize re-seeding

I suspect it will be a plan of eradication, prevention and maintenance but right now I'm feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work to do.

Thanks for your help.

Idabean/Marie