I used large chunks of broken concrete salvaged from a nearby highway project (most were about 6" thick and sized at least 2 feet by ten or more inches) to build steps on my clay slope. I dug a level patch the width and three times the depth of my bottom stairstep into the base of the hill. The concrete pieces I set here became the landing (the outer third) and the foundation for the first step (the remaining 2/3). When these were all level I shoveled about three inches of the local clay onto the inner 2/3 and pounded it firm before adding the next layer of concrete chunks, the first actual step and the foundation for the step above. I repeated this for each riser, so there is concrete support in the hillside for each successive riser. It took five steps to mount the hill -- the top step is twice the depth of the rest, to make a smooth transition to the paver pathway at the top of the hill. Best of all, the whole thing was FREE! I am less than five feet tall; I took a hint from another gardenweb post and used a tripod with a pulley attached at the top to maneuver these chunks, all of which were far too big for me to lift. Does this make sense? Lynn

Part of design is dealing with many issues at once. The focus here seems to be how to design with only a slope in mind. Surely there are other things that need or at least could be affected by what you do on this slope. Sometimes a slope is a targeted area to plant because it is ugly with struggling plants or a mix of weeds and volunteers (those Tennessee folks show up everywhere). If the idea is to make the slope less ugly or more beautiful, it should have a different design approach than if it were to make you feel less like you are going to topple over the hill everytime you walk out the door. What I'm saying is that the slope is probably much more of the place where you are going to act in order to affect something else rather than the thing that needs to be affected. Does that make sense? If it is the thing that you need to affect, it might be that you can affect it more effectively (sorry) by doing things in areas other than on the slope itself. One of my favorite tricks when dealing with an unattractive slope is to distract attention from it in order to no longer need to mow, maintain, or plant on the slope - to make it visually unimportant. A row of tree just in front of the toe of the slope works great. The idea is not to screen the slope, but to make the trees so dominant that the slope is a nonfactor even though it is in plain view. It is simple, but very powerful. A short hedge at the top of the slope can keep your attention out over the slope rather than looking down it while making you feel more secure at the same time. These are examples of things that might be relevent to you, or not. The point is to look for what is relevent rather than looking at the slope as a separate entity.

We too have two steep hills in our backyard that get barely any water. We're in north GA. When we bought the house there were clumps of English Ivy, obviously doing terribly. You could see the awful erosion all around the clumps. We planted the spreading type of liriope two years ago, and let me tell you we planted three hundred clumps and five have spread so far. We planted the orange wild daylilies here and there, they have become huge and have started to spread. I stuck giant daffodil bulbs and some vinca minor in spots, they are both doing well so far. I will tell you I have creeping phlox out front with good soil and water, and it has covered everything it can reach (hard to weed in). I stuck two of the same plants out back in a corner of the hill to see how it did, and both are the same exact size two years later. Just my two cents to add, hope I helped!

You don't have to do lots of digging. For quick and dirty terracing, get the railroad ties and get rebar. Pound the rebar into the ground on the downhill side of the ties, and they will hold the ties in place. Erosion will gradually wash soil up against the ties, creating the terrace. Or you can dump dirt against the ties yourself.