Meadow and Sunny Hillside Update

Fall color on the hillside

It's been just over a year since I planted a meadow with native seed mix and native plants around the edges. I also spent a lot of time last year on the sunny hillside just above the meadow. I'm now thinking of this whole area as my mostly native border (plus berries and spring bulbs). It's a big area, probably about a quarter of the whole yard, and furthest from the house and water outlet, so hardest to maintain.

Sunny hillside from the bottom

I did very little on the sunny hillside this year, just let everything grow. No water except the drip line on the blueberries and raspberries. I ended up moving some of the lewisia and probably will move the rest, they get buried under other plants. Now that the raspberries are really growing, the lupine are too big, I can't get up the steps between them. I dug out one of the lupine and will need to take out the other two or keep them well trimmed back.

Now that the ground is starting to soften up, I planted these on the lower part of the hillside:

• Roemer's fescue - a bunch more, grown from seed
• Xerophylum tenas, beargrass - 2 grown from seed
• 3 Erigeron karvinskianus, labelled as Oregon fleabane but now I see that's erroneous
• Echinacea p. 'Pow Wow Wild Berry'
• Echinacea hybrida 'Cheyenne Spirit'

Meadow, looking south

Meadow, looking north

The meadow has more surviving lawn grass than I had hoped, plus some other obvious weeds, so I've done a little weeding a few times. I can see more of the native perennials growing in though so I'm hoping they will take off next year. I've also continued to dig out false bamboo from the back corner, it is close to gone. Plus a lot of watering over the summer, apparently I picked a bad year to plant so many bushes and trees! But I've continued to plant a few more native perennials in and around the meadow:

• 2 allium cernuum, nodding onion
• 1 solidago rugosa 'Fireworks', goldenrod
• Asclepias speciosa, milkweed - a bunch grown from seed
• Chamaenerion angustifolium, fireweed - a small clump transplanted from elsewhere in the yard

Goldenrod

Milkweed seedling

Also planted in the the shade under the bottom edge of the flowering currant:

• Tellimia grandiflora, fringecup
• Trillium ovatum
• Oxalis oregana
• Asarum caudatum, wild ginger
• Decentra formosa, bleeding heart

Bleeding heart and wild ginger

Oxalis and bleeding heart

Whew, the plants add up to a lot more than I thought and I suspect I'm missing some too.

Next year, I need to tackle the other side of the hillside, get the Oregon grape and flowering currant under control and plant groundcover under them to keep out the grass and weeds.