what are red tips???

are hosta viable in your area???

or wait.. you just want our collective wisdom.. rather than hosta suggestions?? ... either is fine ...

whats your budget ... retaining wall is probably going to be tens of thousands ....

i think i would go with vinca ... pachysandra ... etc ... things that might need water for the year of planting.. but otherwise... will otherwise be carefree for decades ...

though digging for plants might be hard ... the real problem will be watering .. and short of engineered drip irrigation.. you are limited to broadcast watering.. and frankly.. its going to be very hard in a space that size ... to water deeply ... trust me.. i tried to water a bed that size with rainbirds.... by the time i got an inch down on one area... and moved.. etc ... it took a week ... and i had to go start over ... and i dont have any clue how that would work in z8 GA ...

ken

You could make terraces with pressure treated lumber, the ground contact one. I have a little terrace with it holding up for 20 years. I also have small terraces made out of red concrete wall blocks from Home Depot :

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Pavestone-12-in-L-x-4-in-H-x-7-in-D-Red-Concrete-Wall-Block-81151/100333174

You could calculate how much that would cost you, but you are able to DIY, ie. driving it home with your car/truck as I do. You would stack those blocks, with the wall leaning backwards.

You probably have clay, so digging for planting will be tough. Good luck! You should take time to do it.

It looks to me like someone previously went to the trouble of carving into the slope to increase the area of level yard below the slope. I look at the edging timbers down low and think there should be a raised bed back to the stacked timbers and where the stacked timbers are should be the start of another terrace, but we're talking a LOT of fill now and DIY would be brutal. Ook that's a heck of a slope...

Ken, a red tip is a red tip photenia. It's a very large shrub that is cheap, grows quickly and then gets sick. If you never trim it, it does better, but most everyone takes them out at 10 to 15 years.

I'd stay away from anything wooden. Even the treated stuff rots and when it does, you're older and less inclined to want to do it again. If it's DIY, cinder block doesn't sound too practical. If you choose to terrace it, you lose the red tip roots that are holding the soil. Then, you'd have to put in some burlap type stuff to hold the soil until you can get it planted.

I'd go with a mixture of shade loving ground covers and low shrubs that are not water hogs. Pick older varieties that are workhorses. In the brighter areas, use some day lilies. They are good at holding a slope. Irises are good for that as well. You can usually get Irises for free on Craig's list. Maybe design an undulating row of dwarf burfords (or some other way to create some kind of order/unity to the site) and fill in the some of the areas on each side with a common plant, say, a section of pachysandra and another section with green loriope and another with variegated loriope. I'd draw it out on paper. Then check each plant for water needs. Do your best not to get anything that is really thirsty after the first year. (try to get it done this fall, so you have the winter and spring for it to get established and it won't take so much watering) After a year of dragging that hose, you won't want to do it another year. Hosta ventircosa will do well for you. It's a species and will reseed itself. I'd definitely stay away from anything except the workhorse type hosta unless you plan on setting up a watering system for that area.

Here's a list of shade loving plants that should do well for you.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=13299160672243

Let us see your plan, when you have it done.

bk

My post was too long. Here's the rest of it.

This is our local garden guru guy whose been on
the radio here for 35 years. He's great at questions like yours. Call
between 7AM and 9AM, your time, on Sunday. Call and ask him. Carefully craft your question so that you give him the maximum information in the fewest words. Tell him how high the slope is, how long it is, how steep it is.and how much shade you have and that it's a DIY situation. It's an 800
number. You'll be on hold for 30 or 45 minutes, but you can usually
get through. Anything he says should apply equally to you. We're 8a, too. We just have alkaline soil. I assume your's is acid.

http://neilsperry.com/

bk

Ken,

I'm mainly looking for collective experience/wisdom. Hostas do grow here: I have a few in my collection that are still in pots. :)

We will be planting mainly for foliage - as my husband and I are allergic to flower pollen (& my husband - severely allergic to bees that the flowers attract). Also, we would install a drip irrigation system: I do appreciate the concern about water. This is another reason why I might just hide the slope with a fence.

In the "before" photo below are red tips (the new growth emerges red). They were over planted here (Georgia) in the early 1980's as privacy screens. Due to their overabundance & close proximity, they developed & spread black spot. In addition to these negatives, ours should have been pruned to maintain a privacy hedge form, but the previous owners of our home did not do so. (For us specifically, we couldn't go outside in the spring - we were so allergic to the flowers.)

Bernd, thanks for the suggestions! I am familiar with the landscape lumber - we have crumbling 35-year-old timbers in our back yard & here's a photo of the ones (that I assume are younger) in our front yard:

Thanks, bkay!

Because I am on the receiving end of a few rotten retaining walls in the form of landscape timbers - even if were not living in this house in 30 years - I'm a little reluctant about installing anything that I know will be an issue for someone else in the future.

Thanks for the plant advice, link, and phone number! I never knew day lilies or iris in particular were good for a slope - but I don't think we have enough light for them in the back. I'm thinking a variety of ferns, perhaps a Japanese maple (If we can dig it in there), perhaps Japanese forest grass, and hearty hostas. You should see the other side of our house - covered in loriope! Would the pachysandra choke out other plants?

digger96, I agree.

Looks like the perfect spot for a terraced amphitheater, populated with Hostas. But, you're talking a lot of work, and the irrigation issue Ken mentioned.

I have Japanese forest grass, Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola,' that grows well under a silver maple - lots of tree roots and somewhat dry. I second that idea. Another one to try is Polygonatum falcatum 'Variegatum,' variegated Solomon's Seal. I also have a, very small, slope in the back of my yard. We have an 18" high retaining wall fronting the garden on that slope that is just the right height to sit on. If this is an area of the property where you might spend some time you might want to consider sitting height. That's all I can recommend as I garden in zone 4. Good luck.