I would be tempted to get a load of mid sized boulders delivered and make a small retaining wall with ample compost added.

Also, I'd try local garden clubs, native plant societies, county extension (associated with your state's land grant university, NCSU I believe) for help eith plant selection.

If you end up going with vinca, you could add in many small bulbs and at least have a big spring display too.

Ornamental grasses, groundcover junipers, reasonably tough perennials like catmint, daylilies - it doesn't strike me as that tough a spot.

Oh yeah, it looks kinda tough. Compacted clay, tree roots, water running right off when it rains. Not easy. It could be nice, but you will have to make some kind of support in front for your plants- boulders would look nice and make pockets of planting areas that you could then fill and keep watered until established. The plants mad gallica mentioned sound ideal to me. Best of luck.

This is where the thugs come in handy. You could plant a bank of Leymus arenarius 'Blue Dune'. This is a gorgeous light blue grass that spreads aggressively by underground rhizomes. Its not picky about soil or moisture levels. Its so pretty people often plant it in gardens but you need a deep barrier in that situation. Santa Rosa online still has some plants for sale real cheap.

Another attractive thug is Silver King artemisia. Then there is Lantana.

This is how I would approach it, not boring vinca vine--Gag! Personally I hate that and its not the only choice, its just the most unimaginative one. Besides, its awful in dry conditions, looks like hell and doesn't block anything.

There are many very attractive thugs which people complain about but really, for a purpose like this they are perfect because of their "negative" aggressiveness. Thats exactly what you need.

Little Bluestem, especially the pretty selected cultivars such as 'The Blues' would be perfectly happy in afternoon sun and would do great in that dry soil, it looks best growing dry. Also, Russian Sage would probably take it there just fine and stay really upright.

Digging the holes & getting some tough plants established will be the fun part but I know people who are dealing with caliche, thats worse..

This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 19:18

Gregs blue mist flower ( Eupatorium greggii Z7) and Eupatorium coelestinium(Z5) are area covering thugs for most situations. . White mist flower either Eupatorium wrightii ( Z7a, ) or E . havanense(7b? hardiness not truly tested yet since new to the trade) love a tough sunny area . Butter flies LOVE all of these. These can take shade and sun combined. The E wrighti is more of a gangly spreader and Havanese is more bush like. Both are great.

amend the soil. Try coreopsis moonbeam, dwarf conifers, hellebores, stachys humilo, nepeta, calamintha, bulbs for spring, coneflowers, >>>I would not get into "garden thugs" as that area does not look that big and you will end up regretting it. and Yes, forget the vinca.

I respectfully disagree, plants labeled thugs are the way to go in hard dry clay like that. I'm not talking about invasive plants but strong roots and good spreaders are exactly what you need unless you want to haul in some tons of topsoil. The artemisias and a good spreading grass like Leymus will form gorgeous solid drifts of color to tie in the area into a well designed bank. You could add other plants and native grasses such as Little Bluestem, purple coneflowers, rudbeckias, Russian Sage etc for texture. It would be easy maintenance and these plants would thrive in the difficult situation. I've seen this done using those same plants and its gorgeous.

Plants that become thugs in good soil are well behaved in tough conditions like this and are perfect for preventing erosion on a dry bank. You need the strong roots that are able to survive the situation and plants that have the stamina to fill in space and look good in dry clay soil. The only reason they get a bad rap is because people plant them in good loam and they take over other plants in average garden situations.

This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 14:38

shadeyplace, i don't know how to amend the soil on a rock hard hillside. that's why i posted. TexasRanger10 and wantonamara, i like your ideas. Maybe something leguminous to help soil, too. I like the little bluestem the blues. i like the idea of the eupatorium havanese - it looks less weedy and i like the autumn eupatorium. i think i will add in some salvia greggi. i saw a pic where the red and the blue were next to each other and it was beautiful. Thank you T and W! I suppose even for these tough plants I will have to soaker hose water it or something for first year for them to get established?

I find that a lot of times that people who have rock hard clay in texas will put down 4 inches of native composted wood much and compost and stand back and let patience and bugs do the rest. The bugs seem to work wonders under the pile. I have not done this myself, but it was recommended for clay .. Maybe it is hearsay and wishful thinking. But one can build a compost heap on really crappy soil and the stuff below turns into gold in year .

Legumuminous, you say. I just thought of Coral BeanPlant. I have always wanted to grow this one. Ethrina herbacea is said to like clay as well as sand (are you listening Campanula) . It dies down to the ground in winter and makes a nice bodacious display in spring. It says sandy soil but I also see people mentioning alkaline gumbo soil too. It is usually red but PD has a pink one for a pretty penny. I might mulch it where you are. They say hardy to Z 7 and some reports have it growing in Maryland. Drought hardy once established.

Here is a link that might be useful: coral Bean, Ethrina herbacea.

This post was edited by wantonamara on Sun, Jun 29, 14 at 14:04

Baptisia, coreopsis, vernonia, amsonia, anemone Canadensis, are just a few really nice plants that will do well there. No need to plant real thugs. eventually planting these things will make the soil better over time.

I adore erithrina x binwidii. I have bought and killed it at least 4 times from PD. Never got it going here, LOL. I like the coral bean, too.

Yes yes yes! Grow bluestem! Its native over most of the US so its ecologically good. Its gorgeous grown in such a situation. Those awful flopping disasters you see in good garden soil are put to shame next to the perfectly vertical glaucous blue regal and stiff specimens grown in rock hard dirt. Here is where its at its best. On a windy day, swaying gracefully in the wind......it doesn't get prettier than that.

There is a good one on the market called 'MinnBlueA' Blue Heaven that got the most raves at a trial by the visitors. It gets very red in fall. There are so many nice ones, its hard to choose. Some are powder blue in summer, others are noted more for fall color. In my opinion all of them are nice.

ps, around here some of the nicest bluestem are the those I see growing out of what looks like solid red sandstone outcroppings along the highway where they gouged out the bank to keep the highway grade flat. Hard as a rock and those plants look like a million bucks.

That one is more tropical than the E. herbacea. There are red E. Herbacea (who is one parent of the X bidwidii (sp?)). But you would be on the edge and having a sand y soil and not wet feet in winter might be a necessity there. Texas Ranger has added huge amounts of sand to her clay and totally changed the character of her soil. But that is a bunch of work. One needs to add about 1 part sand , and one part gravel and one part compost mixed into the 1part native clay soil. She said it did wonders to her heavy gumbo soil .

Actually, we dumped the sand right on top of the clay about 3" deep more or less, some places are much deeper. We covered it all in river rock gravel with larger round rocks lining the edges. When I dug a hole I'd scrape away the gravel & use a $1.99 bag of top soil to mix in each time I planted special things, I got about two to three plants per bag. I've built it up and added plants so gradually, it wasn't that hard to do. For grasses, I just dug down and mixed the base clay and sand by turning it over a few times.

The sand was very cheap, a dump truck load doesn't cost much but buying bags of play sand or concrete sand at Home Depot is expensive.

The volunteer plants just come up and root through the sand down to the cruddy soil below. Water soaks in real fast and it stays moist longer and its easy to edit since the plants dig and pull right out of it with clean roots practically. Its real easy to work in. I have read in many places this is a bad practice but its worked like a charm here for growing native plants. My clay isn't the kind thats sticky, its hard dirt thats heavy in clay content but the gradual downhill slope makes the drainage not an issue.

I guess you could call this the Cheap Lazy Man's Method.

Its hard to tell but that slope in the photo looks steeper so anything added on top looks like it might run right off.