Your slope transformation is lovely, much better than grass with all the color.

daylilydreams said:Your slope transformation is lovely, much better than grass with all the color.

Thank you. It was a lot of work to get it done but now it just looks so pretty. Yes, much better than the grass.

I love it! If I'd seen this idea/article a couple of years ago I would have seriously done this in our yard but we are selling this house and moving 100 miles south to our retirement home next summer so I don't plan on any major planting/landscaping chores here. Our backyard slopes down to a waterway and before the riding mower died for good it really scared me to mow that slope so I'd leave it for my husband. When we adopted a dog a couple of years ago, my husband installed a fence so I had no more worries about the mower getting away from me and going into the water. I now use the self propelled walk behind mower to go down the slope and he uses the weed whacker on the other side of the fence along the waters edge.

LOL, after seeing your lovely photos I'm going to be thinking of someplace at our new home to build a slope/ berm just for daylilies!

Sometimes a difficult spot turns out the prettiest. Thank you for the compliments and the thumbs up and acorns.

I've seen the beautiful photos that you've posted on some of the forums and they certainly show that your garden is a labor of love!

Great job Rita!
Slopes are definitely not for grass lawns which need mowing.
There are so many plants which grow better with the good drainage of a slope.

I could never have done this project at first when I started daylilies. I needed clumps large enough to transplant so as to hold the soil in the hill. So I used daylilies that had been growing in another garden in the backyard. Later I planted that back garden with new daylilies that where smaller plants that you get mail order.

So lots of work but it turned out really great.

Rita - What a terrific idea! I may steal your idea. I have a sloping area across my front yard near the street and it is a pain to mow. What a perfect solution. AND like you ... it gives me room to move any daylilies that need to be divided or move daylilies around to free up more space for new ones! Brilliant!!! THANK YOU!!!

I do have one question ... did the straw kill off the grass in that area? I just don't want the grass competing with the daylilies for water and fertilizer.

plantladylin said:I've seen the beautiful photos that you've posted on some of the forums and they certainly show that your garden is a labor of love!

All your pics and transformations are beautiful and wonderful!

Rock on, Rita!

Beautiful ! Hmmm -- I have one of those slopes, very much like yours; now you have me thinking... (You are a very bad influence on me, Rita!)

I love it!!!!!

Yeah, that Rita!
Got me buying 50 tulips last fall AND wanting to buy 50 more of the same kind to make the "statement" larger!

beckygardener said:Rita - What a terrific idea! I may steal your idea. I have a sloping area across my front yard near the street and it is a pain to mow. What a perfect solution. AND like you ... it gives me room to move any daylilies that need to be divided or move daylilies around to free up more space for new ones! Brilliant!!! THANK YOU!!!

I do have one question ... did the straw kill off the grass in that area? I just don't want the grass competing with the daylilies for water and fertilizer.

Yes. In my method I dug holes for spacing for an entire row of daylilies before I moved any. I left the grass in between them. Then later I put straw over the grass to kill it. Just straw and yes that killed the grass just fine.

What a beautiful area you have now with the daylilies! for a great article.

Thank you, Rita!

Now to find a source for straw. I only see hay sold here for livestock and I know it can contain a lot of weed seeds. Maybe in the fall for Halloween it will be sold? Hmmmm ....

Wow!
It was a big job and well worth the effort. Great transformation.

Very good article and great idea !
Also, very clever the way you mixed in the tulips so there's something there before the daylilies bloom.

Wherever they sell hay for livestock they should also be selling the straw. I just buy it in big bales.

Thank you. I will check into that.