Progress on the hillside, part 4

Happy lupine

Five weeks, that's how long it's been since I last posted pictures of my sunny hillside. I didn't expect to do any more work in this area, other than weeding and watering, until fall. Planting in the dry sunny months never seems like it ends well, no matter how much watering I do, and this area is particularly hot and dry. But we've had very mild weather, even some rain, so I decided to go ahead and finish digging up the last of the grass. I had covered it in cardboard a couple of months ago, so the grass came up fairly easily and I was able to yank out the last of the landscape fabric (alas, there's more on the other half of the hill).

Looking south

Looking north

These are the same type of stepping stones that I have going up the hill next to the raspberries.

New plants:

• Seaside daisy, erigeron glaucus
• Rocky Mountain penstemon, penstemon strictus
• Yarrow, achillea millefolium 'Desred'
• Blanket flower, gallardia 'Arizona Sun'
• Coreopsis 'Red Satin' PPAF
• Coreopsis lanceolata 'Sterntaler'
• Columbine, aquilegia 'Origami red and white'

Red satin coreopsis and yarrow

Again, I'm trying to stick with native or "near" native - there are native varieties of all of these, but often the ones I planted are not true natives. That's mainly because the natives are just harder to find, and sometimes I fall for the showier hybrid plants too. I really love the leaves and flowers on the red satin coreopsis.

I grew the aquilegia from seed for my rose garden and ended up with extras. The daisy replaced the penstemon davidsonii near the top of my rock stream; that is the only plant that has died (cross your fingers).

Now, never mind the new plantings, I'm astonished at how much everything that I planted earlier in the year has grown. Remember, here's what it looked like in January.

Only the blueberry bushes are still the same, and a little lavender hidden between them. I'll have to remember to take a few pictures next January too because of course everything looks more sparse in the winter.

Now, look at my brand new raspberries! And lupine and salvia and yarrow - and everything else!

The wildflowers and poppies that I scattered across the bottom have grown huge too, after I was afraid none of them would even come up.

I still have a quite a bit of space to fill in, need to cover the ground completely in layers otherwise I'll be stuck weeding forever. I'm waiting for some plants to spread on their own - especially the wild strawberry and kinnickinnick - and planning to get more bear grass, harebell and Roemer's fescue in the fall. There's another big native plant sale in the fall that I'm eagerly awaiting.

Then, I have big plans for the area below this hill. You may spot the plastic cover in some of the pictures above. More about that soon!