The saddest part of my garden

Alison who blogs as Bonney Lassie recently encouraged bloggers to "tell the truth" about the ugly bits in their gardens instead of showing only the pretty parts. Stepping up to the challenge, I'm providing a close look at my back slope.  I've shown it on occasion, usually in long shots that disguise just how crappy it looks.  Most people who visit my garden never see it at all as it's hidden behind the hedge that lines the main level of the back garden.

At a glance, you might think this gravel path on the northeast side of the house ends at the fence in the background

But, if you walk to the end of that gravel path, make a sharp pivot and look down you'd see this:

All the area to the right of the bay laurel hedge on the left is part of my garden.  My husband and I didn't even know it was there until we discovered it during the course of the final inspection prior to the close of escrow.

The concrete block stairway wasn't there when we purchased the property.  There was just a dirt path, a slippery dirt path.  After I fell a few times, my husband decided we needed to create a safer way of moving through the space.  He hauled in forty-one 50-pound concrete blocks to construct the stairway.

Our property was once part of rock quarry and large rocks can still be found here and there.  My husband had to work around many of these as he set the concrete blocks in place.

I had a lot of plans for the garden when we took possession of the property but the back slope wasn't even on my radar at first.  However, almost from the time we moved in, one thing kept drawing us down to the bottom of the slope.

The lemon tree close to the southeast property line bears fruit nearly continuously.  The only events to halt fruit production were two extreme heatwaves, both of which caused the tree to drop all its fruit nearly overnight.  In each case it took the tree several months to recover but recover it did.

I gradually found myself making small changes in the area.  While I turned a blind eye to the ivy and honeysuckle-covered upper portion of the slope from the beginning, I took tentative steps to plant the lower section after clearing out the weeds that covered the area.  Even though I knew it was foolish from the start, I used the extensive collection of wood and rubber tree rings left by the previous owner to hold the soil in place as I began to add plants.

This photo from February 2015 shows the tree rings I used to hold the soil and my new plants in place

As you might expect, the tree rings have decayed over time.  I've pulled out about three-quarters of them already.

While some of the plants I originally installed rooted well, others did not and, as I begin to fill in the empty areas, another solution is required to prevent further erosion of the soil.  I'm considering erosion control tubes filled with soil or compost but my husband favors a more permanent solution in the form of concrete blocks.   Not only are those are heavy and awkward to carry down that steep stairway, my concern is that they may distract from the plants themselves.  The debate is ongoing.

The bigger issue now is what to do with the upper slope.  Ignoring it was easier when it was the mostly uniform green mass you see in the 2015 photo but extreme heatwaves in 2016 and again in July of this year took a serious toll.

It's not as obvious when viewed from above

as it is when viewed from below.  Earlier this year, I started cutting back the dead ivy and honeysuckle vines but I gave that up when the heat soared, covering the area I'd cleared with cardboard in the hope of preventing weeds and ivy from growing  there.

The slope hadn't yet recovered from the 2016 heatwave when our temperature soared to 110F in July, making things even worse

With one bad knee, this area is far too steep for me to manage myself.  I think I might be able to clear an area of about 5 feet all along the edge of the slope as I started doing earlier this year but there's no way I can eradicate all the ivy and honeysuckle up to the top of the slope.  I've considered hiring a team to remove the troublesome vines but then I'd still have to grapple with the problem of terracing the slope in some fashion to allow replanting and, ivy being ivy, I'm concerned that weeding out new shoots will be a perpetual problem.  If I can clear a workable area along the stairway, I may try planting soft succulents like Agave attenuata and shade-tolerant grasses but I still have to solve the erosion problem.

The area below the stairway was also affected by the heatwaves.  Some plants died outright while others just looked like hell.

From left to right: Euphorbia 'Dean's Hybrid', Pelargonium 'White Lady', and a dead Ribes viburnfolium

I started work on cleaning up the area in late September as our summer heat abated but then I had a run-in with what I believe were fire ants and I was gun-shy about working in the area for awhile.  Prior to the last rainstorm, I went to work down there again, mainly in tidying things up.  I pruned the fig tree; cut back the Centranthus, Euphorbia, and Pelargonium; dug out the dead Ribes and replaced it with a manzanita (Arctostaphylos bakeri 'Louis Edmunds'); pruned the other two Ribes, the bush anemone (Carpenteria californica), and the groundcover lantana; planted Aeonium haworthii 'Kiwi Verde' cuttings and Santolina plugs; and sowed California poppy seeds.  It looks neater, if also very bare.

I'm hoping the Centranthus, Santolina and the small artichoke plants that survived July's heatwave will fill in the bare areas.  There are self-seeded pink evening primroses there too that, given enough rain, may also come back.

In addition to the ivy on the upper slope, the ivy along the property line still needs to be cut back and I have the perennial problem of controlling the Bignonia capreolata vine I inherited.

Ivy creeps up from the neighbor's area (immediately behind the Pittosporum 'Silver Magic' we planted to mark the boundary line after the giant Yucca elephantipes was removed a few years ago).  I cut it back a couple times a year but I should probably tackle it on a bi-monthly basis.

That huge green mound is the Bignonia, which drapes over all 3 properties that meet at this corner.  Given its mammoth trunk, it's possible that the plant was installed decades ago, perhaps before the land was divided into 3 lots.  (The original owner of our place sold off pieces of the property on both sides of ours, leaving us a very odd 6-sided lot.)

I'm not at all sure what I can accomplish in remaking this part of the garden but it's too much space to simply forfeit.  And it does have  it's positive aspects.

The Aeonium arboreum and Agave attentuata I planted in the area have done well, although the Agaves were burned in the July heatwave.  The artichoke I planted a few years ago always comes back and always bears chokes, leading me to plant several more, only 3 of which survived the past very dry summer.  Centranthus (lower left) is virtually a weed here but it's pretty pink and white blooms give the area color in late spring.  The bay laurel hedge is dense and screens most of my neighbor's chain-link fence (even if its suckers are an issue).  The calla lilies (Zantedeschia aethiopica, lower right) reappear reliably once the rains start and, while they didn't flower well this year, I'm hoping for a better performance in 2019.

Well, that's it for the ugliest area of my garden.  Any suggestions?  What would you do to handle soil erosion?

All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party