There was a time (you know, like last week...) when we had a ROTTEN, deadly hill in the backyard. It was the bane of my outdoor existence, because nothing would grow in the Georgia clay, weeds were unstoppable, and the rake of hill was too steep to climb. I named it my chief #slackerproject for it’s challenge, and thought for sure we would never have the nerve (or the wallet) to tackle it.
At one point, before Red was born, my family bought us a beautiful Teddy Bear Magnolia to plant on the hill, and with lots of watering, it decided it wanted to live amongst the ugly weed-laden phlox and builder-grade crappery shrubbery. It was the only thing I thought should stay. Everything else HAD to go. And quickly, before I should perish from the ugliness.
Fortunately, we have fabulous landscape and interior designers for cousins, so they whipped up a plan featuring drought-tolerant, southern, and (most importantly) nearly un-killable plants. (If you follow my Instagram, I have an entire board devoted to my brown thumb and possible ways to cure it). The first step of our journey was to amend the ikky clay with an entire DUMP TRUCK full of topsoil, dredge out the top layer of crap-ola and till in the good stuff. Save the magnolia tree, and wreck all the other junkiness. It took us 10 hours to scrape, load, till, rake, and pinestraw the hill. 5 people, working nearly non-stop. Phew!
During the tilling/demo, I found a LOT of interesting junk buried in the hill. Sure, we had the run-of-the-mill stones, rocks, worms, and even a garden snake, but the Pièce de résistance was the siding. Yup. The builders had some extra siding left over from the house, so they decided to just lay it in the hill. No big……
Check it out, now! It may not look like much, but things will GROW on this hill, and in my opinion, a blank slate is much much better than a dirty, ugly slate! Stay tuned this summer and into the fall for plantings!
Watch for the plantings in the fall…. we’re still on our way!
I am so jealous! I have a horrible time with plants, and no relatives to rescue me! 🙂
Aw, thanks! We had to stare at the ugliness for 4 years until we had enough and hired our help! It was worth the cash!!