A hillside of work

Lower hillside, facing south

This north half of the lower hillside is my third area to focus on this year, along with the rose garden and the southeast corner (which is visible in the back of the above photo). Ignore the cardboard, it's a temporary attempt to keep the grass and weeds from growing too much before I have time to deal with them.

The first spring after we bought the house, we planted a multitude of fruit and berries: four blueberries on the hillside, two dwarf apples, raspberries on the near side of the trellis, two grapes behind them, and three hardy kiwi on the far end of the trellis. Thirteen years later, the grapes grow amazingly well and completely shade out the raspberries. We need to re-do the trellis (maybe this year, maybe not) for the grapes, and take out the original raspberries - which have probably reached the end of their productive lifespan anyway.

Instead, I want to plant a shorter row of raspberries down the hillside, with wire on metal fence posts to support them. That'll be less solid than the current trellis, but the everbearing type that I like really don't need much support. I also want some type of stepping stones up the hill on either side of the raspberries, because the slope is steeper than it looks and it's easy to slip.

Lower hillside, facing west

The blueberries have grown fairly well, but they'd be happier if I keep the grass and creeping buttercup out. I dug out a big circle of grass around all four bushes last year, and a lot of it has come right back again. I've been researching companion plants for blueberries and there are a lot of options as long as I keep them from directly competing with the blueberries's shallow roots.

All of the grass from the blueberries to the bushes on the south half of the slope (flowering currant, Oregon grape and hazelnuts) needs to come out. It's too hard to mow across the slope, and will be even harder when the new raspberries are planted. This side of the hill gets full sun for most of the day, so I've been looking at some of the native carex grasses. Maybe sedum also, and plumbago might look good with the blueberry stems in the fall. I'm still looking for ideas of what would grow well with full sun and no extra water. I have a drip line on the berries, but I don't plan to water anything else after the new plants are established.

The bottom of the hillside gets very wet in the winter and I'm thinking about planting Siberian irises along the edge of the slope. But not sure if that will be in this project or not!