Juliann, I'll post a site from the UK that has pictures of various types of gardens. This link goes to their Cottage Garden which they say is "contrived to look uncontrived". There are many other types of gardens there that might provide inspiration. Which plants you choose depends on which climate zone you are in. I'm in zone 3 so am somewhat limited in what I can grow. I'll post a pic of what I call my wild bird garden. It's an area in my large garden that has the birdfeeder and birdbath. I allow the flowers to go to seed for the birds so they self-seed. This area has changed over many years altho I initially seeded shasta daisies (the butterflies love them) and yarrow and planted a few established perennials. The yarrow seeds I planted were a mix of red, pink, and white, but the white resembles the wild yarrow we have so we pull it out and it's mostly now only tones of pinks and red. There are also Lamb's Ears because they seed all over my garden but I leave them in this wild area (the bees love them). There are a few other plants, a pink mallow that's 'weedy' but it fills the space and is quite pretty and we also have several lilacs here. Near that area there is also a drift of common old irises which we've allowed to spread. They are in the lower part of the rockery and I will eventually weed some of them out as the bloom time is not very long. If I were deliberately planting a wildflower garden I would not buy a wildflower mix as there could be invasive plants in it. I planted a mix about 14 years ago and still have Dame Hesperis (Dame's Rocket) altho pull out many every year and try to dead-head them ASAP before they seed. It's quite a weed in warmer climates. I would choose seeds of plants I like that are hardy but not invasive and mix them together. Another option is to plant in swaths with various plants and grasses hardy to your area. Keep in mind the moisture requirements of the plants as you decide. The area where I have shastas, mallow, and yarrow needs little watering and only a spring weeding so is easy care. Here is a link that might be useful: The Garden House

Ideally, a 2-cycle Lawnboy with the cast magnesium deck. They are lightweight, tough, easily maneuverable and have a governor that maintains engine speed. Some newer models have a throttle control. Sadly, due to EPA rules, manufacture of these ceased in 2004, I think. If you are patient and diligent you might find one at an estate or yard sale. People who don't understand 2-cycles tend to dispose of them when they only need a simple repair.

I will add, the frequent use of the word "poison" in stone's narrative suggests a less than complete understanding of what the various materials actually are, and what they do. If a specific herbicide has been compounded in such a way as to interfere with one or more enzyme pathways within green, vascular plants, is that a poison? The word poison has an actual and specific meaning. In human terms, a poison is a material which, upon being consumed, causes immediate life-threatening reactions. So, are herbicides which are designed to interfere with one or more essential enzymatic pathways within green, vascular plants poisons? Not to you and me, and not to moss (non-vascular) and not to a mature tree trunk which the material has drifted onto (No green tissue exposure). It is indeed tiring to see the same simple-minded "chemicals are bad" kind of thinking here. So, what about plants which exude allelopathic materials from their root tips? Must they be banished so as not to be poisoning the environment? This is just way too beginner for me. And in support of TR's comments above, you, stone, are putting lots of words in our mouths here. No, you're not the only person on this forum-if you can believe it-that would first seek out the desirable plants in a scenario such as above, for saving before proceeding to do any other work. It must be hard to live your life, knowing as you do that everyone else is an idiot who doesn't know what they're doing. +oM

You have an admirable goal, but I am another soul that wants to weigh in on the side of caution as far as perhaps getting into a project that's potentially unmanageable. So I have a bunch of questions and comments as well as some links to add to what others have said. Can you get a group of volunteers to meet and help on a regular basis in maintaining this? I know the Peterborough NH parks' gardens are all volunteer maintained, but they meet once a week in the early morning for a few hours and there are several in the group. The man who is the designer and organizes the crew has a list of specific tasks each week. Here's a link to the part of his blog that discusses the setup of what he calls a public-private partnership, so the gardens were installed by the town dept. of public works, but are maintained by volunteers about whose work he occasionally writes. You can also click on each garden on the right side of the page for more info. His are more traditional looking gardens that what you are envisioning, but both need maintenance. One of his most useful pieces of advice to my mind is "Design only what you can maintain at the highest level. Long-term maintenance is the key." Are you interested in only native New England plants? It seems as though you want to include them, but also some hardy, low-care non-native perennials (Russian sage.) By nature, New England is naturally a forest, so does your goal include woody plants such as trees and shrubs? If not, you will have considerably more work removing woody plants that will try to move in courtesy of the natural ways plants seed themselves into new territory. The books of William Cullina (former director of the New England Wild Flower Society (NEWFS) and current director of the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden) will be of help in finding natives that suit your situation as will the many resources of the NEWFS. Because that is a cut bank, it is subsoil and not all plants will be happy there with low nutrients and fast drainage, so keep that in mind when choosing plants. You might want to get a soil test done. The area at the top will be much drier than that at the bottom, so plan and plant accordingly. Michael Gordon of Gardener's Eye says, "Prepare soil properly from the onset" which in your case (since you can't dig other than to plant on that slope) may include adding some slow release fertilizer, some compost and as Thyme2dig says above, mulch, lots of mulch. Mulch in the short term will discourage weed seeds from germinating and help maintain even moisture, and long term will add to the soil fertility. I would recommend either curls from a wood turner or chips from a tree service or the crews that maintain the local power lines since both will break down well and until them be more stable on the slope than some other mulch options, and either is free. Have you got the support of whomever does the maintenance for the rest of the property as well the administration? For instance, many of the plants you will want to use are spreaders, either by seed or by runners. If they seed over into the lawn in your photo, will that cause issues? As an example, my back field (quite nutrient poor, sandy acid loam on a very slight slope) has two of the grasses mentioned in the meadow kit from the NEWFS, Eragrostis spectabilis (purple lovegrass) and Schizachrium scoparium (little bluestem). Both are happy in the poor soil, generally low maintenance (the field gets mowed twice a year) and gorgeous in fall. In this photo the lovegrass is the broad swath of red-purple and the little bluestem is the darker, taller grass that shows in a couple of clumps near the edges of the lovegrass. Here's a photo of little bluestem from closer up taken on my way home today. As perhaps you can tell, it is growing in the sandy area along the edge of the road, so it's fine with poor soil. This is just the wild type, but you can also get named varieties that have more of the bluish tones or more of the reddish tones. I think it's really attractive. However, the lovegrass's seedheads behave like tumbleweed, shedding seed as they move, so I find lovegrass in the gravel drive, the veggie garden, etc. Another issue might be the maintenance crew weed whacking your garden, not realizing that it was a deliberate planting. I once had someone hedge prune a lovely shrub to a sheared blob in a public garden I had planted. Is there a water source to get plants established, either hoses from the school or a tank on a truck? All new plantings will be more successful if you can water them when rainfall isn't adequate. I don't want to discourage you, but setting realistic goals will be the key to your success. If there is a local garden club or other group that can be persuaded to see your vision and help consistently , all the better. Steps in order: -Figure out what's there, what can stay (I think I see a few shrubby white pines, for instance) and what to remove. -Create a design (including a plant list) that can be implemented in stages while still maintaining what has already been planted. -With whatever help you have available, implement the first stage. To give a sense of scale, a few years ago, I put in a large mixed perennial and shrub border that's probably 70'x15', working on my own, but with a tractor at my disposal, and the area had already been cleared. It took me 3 full seasons to plant: the first year doing prep, woody plants, and mulching for the first chunk; the second year adding perennials and adding another 15'x15' piece and the third year planting the additional piece and replacing plants that didn't do well from the first two seasons. So take creating it in chunks, but plan the whole thing before your start.