What to do with Steep Slopes

If you live in a home that has large slopes and banks, you might be wondering what you can do with those areas to make them more aesthetically appealing—and also to make some of those areas more usable. There’s no question that installing landscaping and patios around hillside areas can be challenging, but that’s not to say that it can’t be done.

What’s important is that it’s done right and that comes down to hiring someone with experience. Making the wise choice in hiring an experienced landscape professional will determine the end result. By finding the right landscape contractor for the project, you should have confidence your new area will last the test of time.

Ultimately, instead of looking at a steep hill that gives you virtually no appeal you could be enjoying a beautiful landscape with a design that works. We’ll discuss some of the more common things you will need to consider.

Making that hillside more manageable

First thing to consider when dealing with a steep slope is how we can best make this more manageable. Should we build a retaining wall, a boulder wall, or just leave it alone? Retaining walls can increase your budget, but will ultimately carve out usable areas in that hillside. Boulder walls can be slightly less expensive and in the right circumstance can help to terrace an area in a very natural way. CKC Landscaping has experience with all of these concepts we can discuss these further in our consultation.

What to Avoid When Planting Steep Slopes

There are definitely some landscaping hill ideas to steer away from as you consider what to do with your large bank areas. One idea that you may see a lot of, but that is a relatively boring solution, is to plant all of just one plant material on the entire hill. It just doesn’t do much to create any visual interest and adds very little appeal to your property. Also, as your plants mature and if one or two die off it gets harder to integrate new plants as they will stand out.

The type of plant material that you choose also makes a huge difference in the success of planting on your steep slopes. It’s important that you opt for deep-rooted plants and shy away from plant materials with shallow roots that can’t grasp the soil. You also want to avoid invasive species, such as bamboo, which will really take over the area and can become unsightly.

Maintenance is obviously another huge factor to consider when planting steep slopes. It’s ideal to choose more drought-tolerant plants since steep slopes are usually more of a dry micro-climate. You should also choose plants that will require little maintenance as they mature since steep slopes can be difficult to traverse.

When considering maintenance of your hillside areas, it’s important to ask:

• Who is going to maintain the area? Will I have it professionally done by a landscaper or will I be doing it myself?
• How accessible is the area to maintain? Could it be dangerous?
• What type of ongoing maintenance do the plants require?

Answering these questions will help guide you in the decision process of plant material for your steep slope.