I just moved into my first home! I’m an absolute beginner to hard work/landscaping and am hoping to get some advice on this very steep front “yard”
It looks like previous owners tried to plant some evergreens of some type. The soil under the tarp seems to be mostly red dirt. I live in central VA. I was thinking about planting ivy at the top to hopefully cover it all but I’m looking for advice. Do you think I need to keep the tarp? It’s so ugly and my neighbours have similar fronts and don’t appear to use the tarp.
Thanks again!!
by Critical-Ad-3344
3 Comments
Many ways to attack this, but I’d consider stepping it so you create some flat surfaces to make planting easier and avoid erosion. It is weird, but could become a feature. It’s also pretty small, so it might not cost that much. But if you’re in the right zone and need a cheap solution, Asian jasmine is cheap and grows relatively fast. But you will probably still have erosion and it won’t look great. And, get rid of the tarp.
You need a retaining wall at the bottom. Or you could get some very large boulders delivered and do a boulder rock frontage.
Attach a piece of big O pipe for that down spout and trench it under the hill so it’s not such an eyesore.
Whatever you do donot plant ivy. It’s horribly invasive in most parts of the world and there are much nicer native species you could use for this space.
Here’s what I’d do. Pull up that landscape fabric, and get a ton of Pink Muhly grass plugs. Native prairie grasses are known for putting out deep roots which helps tremendously with soil retention. You will need to plant them quite dense. Now that I’m looking a little closer, this might not work on the shady far side, but worth a shot for the sunny part.
You could put in retaining walls if you want, but English ivy is like, the worst. You don’t want to do that.