garden Q&A: A plant for every slope – Tribune

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By Tribune-Review

Published: Saturday, May 25, 2013, 9:00 p.m.

Updated 9 hours ago

Q: Can you share ideas for a partially grassy rocky slope? It borders the driveway and doesn’t look so good. I used crown vetch (the highway jewel), and it filled up with weeds after several years. I would appreciate your ideas.

A: Your slope sounds a bit like a gardener’s nightmare. Not only is it a physical challenge to work there, but it’s difficult to find the right kinds of plants to grow successfully in such conditions. However, you do have a few options to work with.

First, if you don’t mind the grass and existing crown vetch already growing there, you can leave it be and just plant new things in and around it. The main benefit of allowing those plants to remain is the erosion control they provide. If it were my slope, this is the route I probably would choose. I would purchase plugs of several different tough-but-beautiful native plants and tuck them into the slope.

Some good plant choices include coreopsis, asters, goldenrod, coneflowers, yarrow, blackeyed Susans, bunch grasses, salvias and the like. Keep them watered for the first season or two until they establish, then after that, they’re on their own. To maintain the slope, just mow or weed whack it once each spring. Yes, it will look a little rowdy, but the slope will be held in place, and as you continue to add a few new plants every year, the flowers will fill in any and all bare patches.

If you want a clean slate, you’ll have to kill or otherwise remove the grass and crown vetch, which is not going to be easy. I would never suggest someone plant crown vetch on purpose (unless you are PennDOT — and even then, its merits are debatable), because it is so difficult to control. If you do manage to strip the area clean, I would suggest planting a mixture of dense-growing groundcovers over the entire area. Sweet woodruff, lamium, ivy, creeping phlox and other low-growing, tough perennials would suit, but you’ll have to keep the area carefully weeded and watered for several years until the ground cover completely fills in.

Another option would be to seed the entire bank with a wildflower mixture, but again, you’ll still need to keep it weeded and watered until it’s established.

I also might consider adding a few large boulders to the hillside, as they can fill up a good bit of space, add some interest and help hold the slope in place. They also can be used as supports for some colorful container plantings if you nestle them into the bank and keep them relatively level.

Horticulturist Jessica Walliser co-hosts “The Organic Gardeners� at 7 a.m. Sundays on KDKA Radio. She is the author of several gardening books, including “Grow Organic� and “Good Bug, Bad Bug.� Her website is www.jessicawalliser.com.

Send your gardening or landscaping questions to tribliving@tribweb.com or The Good Earth, 503 Martindale St., 3rd Floor, D.L. Clark Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15212.

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