Landscape Design
Flowers and Plants
Yard of the Week: Mountaintop Garden Bursting With Color
A designer enlivens a steep slope with resilient and pollinator-attracting plants, complementing spectacular vistas
Perched high atop a mountain in Lansing, North Carolina, this home has spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The yard around it, consisting of a steep and rocky slope, immediately drops and experiences other unforgiving conditions, such as harsh sunlight, extreme winds and poor drainage. When the couple who lives here turned to garden designer Jay Sifford for help beautifying the hillside, he embraced the idea of meeting the site’s challenges.
“The biggest challenge was balance. I didn’t want the garden to compete with the mountains. But the garden needed to speak to the mountains and hold its own against them without overpowering them,” Sifford says. The tectonic plates that formed the mountains hundreds of millions of years ago inspired his design, which is composed of stunning mounds of plants, including grasses, shrubs, ground covers, evergreens and perennials.
“The biggest challenge was balance. I didn’t want the garden to compete with the mountains. But the garden needed to speak to the mountains and hold its own against them without overpowering them,” Sifford says. The tectonic plates that formed the mountains hundreds of millions of years ago inspired his design, which is composed of stunning mounds of plants, including grasses, shrubs, ground covers, evergreens and perennials.
Around a deck off the house, Sifford planted masses of panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata, zones 3 to 8). “There are such beautiful clouds up here. The hydrangeas mimic the clouds, and when you’re standing here, you feel like you’re in a marshmallow sandwich between the two,” he says.
The main thing the homeowners wanted on the property was a generously proportioned set of steps through the garden. “They had been to Rome, and said that seeing all the steps there had inspired them,” Sifford says. They hired local masons to craft the steps from regional stone. The walls directly off the steps are boulder walls. “These walls speak to the region, because there is so much rock in these mountains,” Sifford says. A local artisan crafted a custom railing placed down the center of the stairs.
One of the homeowners was in the pottery business and wanted to use lots of large terra-cotta pots from Italy. “The winds are so strong that some of the large pots they’d originally used were blown over and broken, so they switched them out for these lower square pots,” Sifford says.
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One of the homeowners was in the pottery business and wanted to use lots of large terra-cotta pots from Italy. “The winds are so strong that some of the large pots they’d originally used were blown over and broken, so they switched them out for these lower square pots,” Sifford says.
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Sifford surrounded the steps with mounds of exuberant plants. “When I thought about the site, I felt like the mountains had been formed by about 15 tectonic plates colliding. And then I imagined mounds of plants were shapes coming out of fissures between those plates,” he says. “That story in my head became my concept for the garden.”
The designer also amended the soil here. He added sand rock to provide good drainage for the plants, and compost where needed. He also mulched with shredded hardwood for moisture retention. “There’s no irrigation, as we have sufficient rain,” Sifford says. “Plants were hand-watered as needed until established.”
The designer also amended the soil here. He added sand rock to provide good drainage for the plants, and compost where needed. He also mulched with shredded hardwood for moisture retention. “There’s no irrigation, as we have sufficient rain,” Sifford says. “Plants were hand-watered as needed until established.”
The undulating silhouettes of the mounded plants converse with the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance. These plants extend over the steps, blurring the line between the built and the natural.
How to Design a Great Garden on a Sloped Lot
How to Design a Great Garden on a Sloped Lot
Also blurring this line are rock walls laid throughout the sloped garden. These dry-stacked walls are loose and rustic — fitting for the mountain setting.
The steps lead down to a circular pea gravel path. The mounded plants occupy the space between the path and the house. This photo also shows a couple of the aforementioned specimen conifer trees in the background. “One of my clients’ goals was to attract lots of birds. They have a hummingbird feeder that attracts more hummingbirds than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life,” Sifford says. “Lots of conifers, especially cedars and spruces, have mites that hummingbirds love to eat. They are a good source of protein. I mean, they can’t just feast on the feeder’s sugar water all day.” The conifers also provide shelter for wildlife.
The steps lead down to a circular pea gravel path. The mounded plants occupy the space between the path and the house. This photo also shows a couple of the aforementioned specimen conifer trees in the background. “One of my clients’ goals was to attract lots of birds. They have a hummingbird feeder that attracts more hummingbirds than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life,” Sifford says. “Lots of conifers, especially cedars and spruces, have mites that hummingbirds love to eat. They are a good source of protein. I mean, they can’t just feast on the feeder’s sugar water all day.” The conifers also provide shelter for wildlife.
The looseness of the stone walls created many wonderful opportunities to add plants, including succulents, sedums (Sedum spp., zones 3 to 8) and creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum, zones 4 to 8), between the cracks. “This is the fun part,” Sifford says. “Finishing off the garden with attention to details like this is so important. The small things make an impact.”
A casual Adirondack chair seating area where the homeowners can enjoy the view and feel immersed in the garden is located just off the path. The birdhouse seen here is a miniature custom replica of the house.
The designer carried the hydrangeas down the hill, creating a connection to the top. The plant in the foreground here is mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum, zones 4 to 8). “This plant is resilient and a pollinator magnet,” Sifford says.
Check out our beginner’s guide to get started on your home project
Check out our beginner’s guide to get started on your home project
This photo was taken down the mountain from the path. The big abstract masses of plants incorporate lots of textures. In addition to the junipers, mountain mint, hydrangeas, conifers, heaths and heathers, Sifford planted pollinator-attracting perennials such as lavender (Lavandula spp., zones 5 to 8), Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum, zones 4 to 9) and Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia, zones 5 to 9). “I wanted them to all collide and be low to the ground,” Sifford says.
Visually, there’s a line where the undulating mounds meet the sky. “There’s a subconscious element in a garden. Here it’s that the mounding plants resemble the mounding of the mountains,” Sifford says.
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Visually, there’s a line where the undulating mounds meet the sky. “There’s a subconscious element in a garden. Here it’s that the mounding plants resemble the mounding of the mountains,” Sifford says.
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Just beneath where the previous photo was taken, the grasses begin. “There are cow pastures on the hill, so the grasses provide a natural flow into that landscape,” Sifford says.
Here, Russian sage gives way to a large swath of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’, zones 5 to 9). This grass has reddish-pinkish blooms in late summer and early fall. It attracts birds and provides great spots for them to hide.
Here, Russian sage gives way to a large swath of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’, zones 5 to 9). This grass has reddish-pinkish blooms in late summer and early fall. It attracts birds and provides great spots for them to hide.
Sprinkled into the swath of switchgrass, though they don’t show up in this photo, are purpletop vervain (Verbena bonariensis, zones 7 to 11), ‘American Gold Rush’ black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia ‘American Gold Rush’, zones 3 to 9) and ‘Pow Wow Wildberry’ coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘Pow Wow Wildberry’, zones 3 to 8).
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Sifford also planted large swaths of feather reed grass (Calamagrostis × acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, zones 4 to 9). Here he cut a path through it, lined with stone, that leads to another casual seating area. “I made this path narrow on purpose, so you’d have to brush against the grasses for a tactile experience,” he says.
The grasses are left alone until spring, for the sake of the wildlife as well as winter interest; they’re not cut back until early March. In the switchgrass meadow, this makes the seed heads on the black-eyed Susan and echinacea plants available as a food source for wildlife through the winter.
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The grasses are left alone until spring, for the sake of the wildlife as well as winter interest; they’re not cut back until early March. In the switchgrass meadow, this makes the seed heads on the black-eyed Susan and echinacea plants available as a food source for wildlife through the winter.
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In the foreground of the grass swaths, Sifford placed special elements to draw the eye. Here it’s a sculptural ‘Blue Cascade’ atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica ‘Blue Cascade’, zones 6 to 9).
Find out why you should hire a professional who uses Houzz Pro software
Find out why you should hire a professional who uses Houzz Pro software
The area here with driftwood that Sifford positioned is one of his favorite spots in the garden. “The vistas are amazing. The depth of field is so pronounced,” he says. “The driftwood opens up like a hand to the sky. From a certain angle, it looks like it’s holding the clouds.”
At the top of the hill is a sculptural wood-burning fire pit that’s shaped like a globe, with stone walls providing seating around it. Fortuitously, a rainbow graced the vista on Sifford’s photo shoot day. It added even more magic to this enchanting site.
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Landscape at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple
Location: Lansing, North Carolina
Size: Approximately one-quarter of an acre
Designer: Jay Sifford Garden Design
The site sits 4,000 feet above sea level, and the garden is about one-quarter of an acre. Sifford, a Houzz Pro subscriber who has written Houzz gardening and landscaping stories, planted the garden in 2021. He returned in late August 2025 to photograph the plantings, which had filled in beautifully. “Late summer and early fall are the best times of year to experience this garden,” he says.
While Sifford’s clients had a basic idea of what they wanted, they let him fly pretty freely and use his expertise on the unforgiving site. “This slope faces southwest, with brutal sun in the summer and brutal winds in the winter. I knew I had to find plants that were resilient,” he says. Seen here are a mix of junipers (Juniperus spp., USDA zones 2 to 9; find your zone), heathers (Calluna spp., zones 4 to 10) and heaths (Erica spp., zones 4 to 7), as well as a ‘Thunderhead’ Japanese black pine (Pinus thunbergii ‘Thunderhead’, zones 5 to 8). Sifford showcased dwarf specimen conifers around the site, connecting the larger conifer trees to the mounded garden.
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