Weed infested large, steep slope - wish to plant natives, xerics

8 years ago

Hi, all, I'm doing some volunteer landscaping at a local high school, and would like to transform a large, long, steep slope into an example of sustainable landscaping by using low-maintenance, native and xeric plants. The site is currently a devil's lair of weeds, including bittersweet, crown vetch, bindweed, garlic mustard, and hundreds of others. The soil is very loose. The high school has to use only organic, safe solutions, so Round Up is not a possibility. The weeds are truly overwhelming. Yet the site has the potential to show people how beautiful some of our native New England

plants are, and how we can make something amazing without using chemicals. I have some experience in gardening and landscaping, but would welcome ideas. It will take many years to get to a reasonable landscape, I think. You should see me drool over Piet Oudolf's naturalistic landscapes, but I know this isn't a possibility in this case. This photo doesn't show recent plantings, such as asclepsias tuberosa, ninebark, false indigo, coreopsis, prairie dock, ironweed, russian sage, agastache, etc. Thoughts, please?

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Comments (4)

W
8 years ago
If you have an area where you'd like to remove the weeds, heating the soil will kill the weeds and seeds chemical free. This is the time of year to do it. Mow a patch short and then cover it for 6 weeks with a black tarp that's weighed down.
Jeff Smith
3 years ago
Exactly as W states, mow and then cover with black plastic. Then I would think that the soil would have to be rototilled and large stems, deep roots, etc. removed. If they aren't removed then it seems to me that most of the hardier (deep rooted) weeds will just return.

We just landscaped a bunch of our yard with xeric plants and we had to remove the tenacious plants like alfalfa (with roots from Colorado to China). We planted native prairie grasses in large swathes. Then in more controlled areas, planted big blocks of correopsis, jupiter's beard (valerian) and other hardy (mostly) native plants.

You might check with a site like this for additional native plants in your area, although I can see that you are aware of some of them already:

https://www.wildflower.org/collections/collection.php?collection=MA

As the link shows (I picked MA), there's dozens of native plants, wildflowers and such that may work. Might be fun to have Eastern Redbud, Holly, or Serviceberry or a few larger shrubs as a foundation and then have the smaller perennials fill in? In this way you could show the students how to mix shade and sun-loving plants?

Good luck!
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cottagegardenfee
Original Author
3 years ago
Thanks for the ideas. Would love to see pics of your new yard as inspiration!
Jeff Smith
3 years ago
Hasn't grown in yet, so pretty sparse. At least 90% of plants in ground but some from seed so very small. I'll post some pics later. Here is our inspiration: