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Gardening on a Hill

By tinabarlow
June 7, 2017

I have battled mowing a hill for years, I finally decided to plant flowers and do landscaping where it was hard to stand up. Putting in railroad ties for steps on a hill is great. Now I can actually walk up and down the hill without rolling down. You can also see in the pictures that I put flowerbeds on either side of the steps. An arbor, simply made out of pressure-treated posts, with long bolts holding them together and then set in concrete, gives the wisteria plenty of support. When planting on a steep hill, you have to make sure everything gets watered well until established as rain runs off a hill so fast it doesn't give the plants the water it needs. I also have juniper shrubs on another hillside that help with erosion and that's another area I don't have to worry about mowing. I actually have raised beds on some of my slopes.

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Jun 19, 2017 7:59 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Bea Kimball
Little Rock, Arkansas; (Zone 7b)
Butterflies Echinacea Hellebores Hummingbirder Irises Native Plants and Wildflowers
Million Pollinator Garden Challenge
My house is built into a mountain. I recently had steps built into the hillside in order to access the back of the house more easily. The clearing of a lightning struck tree transformed a sunny location from what had been deep shade. Birds and carelessness had already planted some butterfly weed and louisiana irises along the hill. The workmen threw the dirt from carving the steps onto one side of the hill and threw some wildflower seeds onto it. To prevent erosion they covered it all with straw.
The irises and and butterfly weed have been tough and survived. I don't expect much from your basic wildflower seed packet. I plan to move young pollinator plants to this spot later in the season. As Arkansas approaches the heat of the summer, I am keeping seedlings in pots and will transfer them to their new setting in the fall. I am curious to see what will flourish.
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