landscaping a slope

landscaping a slope

Mon Oct 03, 2011 10:49 pm

I have a slope in the front of my coastal Uruguay home which is about 25 feet across and about 5 ft. down. I thought of carving some steps into the side of the slope with some rocks and groundcover for an "old, weathered look". I'm confused as to what to do with the rest of the slope.... there will be a medium sized (about 8 ft.) Butia Palm tree at one end near the bottom of the slope. The steps would be at the opposite end . Right now I've put a little mish-mash of daisies, ground cover, etc. along the sides where the steps will be, but it's looking too cluttered and I think I have to go larger in scale - something that would make more of a statement.

I'm in the opposite season - Spring and being on the coast, it's very windy. Some plants that work well here in Zone 10 (S. Hemisphere) are lavender, geraniums, daisies, dusty miller and a lot of ground covers.

I saw a slope today that was very nice - much larger than mine, but with a horizontal design - yellowish-green shrubs, a bright purple daisy of some sort surronded by rocks and then falling over the rocks - groundcover. This grouping was repeated horizontally 3 times.

I really like yellow stonecrop for a ground cover, spreads quickly and is real easy to take care of. Here is a picture of it in one of my flowerbeds, it is at the bottom left of the picture. It grows really well between and around rocks. I realized I have to take some more pictures of some other great places I have it growing.