Sorry, I was being tongue in cheek about the shoe spikes. I'm complaining that its much harder to navigate the hill than it used to be. The similarly steep slope on the south side was planted (by developer) with 3 rows of white pines after grass had been laid down. They seem to be doing fine after 4 years. But I don't want to hide my view in front with tall trees or go the monoculture route. I read the following on a native CA plant nursery site (link provided) when researching about planting slopes. Why wouldn't it be the same for Maryland native plants? (They really think grass is a bad idea to use on slopes. I am seeing areas of erosion on my grassy slopes.) "A mixture of deep-rooted [California ] native shrubs, and trees, mixed with shallow-rooted shrubs, and perennials, mulched and with no weeds, will control erosion on the slope. Why should you plant a [California] native plant community on the slope and not grass or ice plant! Because the native plants connect with each other underground, and the microorganisms that live in association with them produce tiny threads that ramify through the soil, coiling around particles of sand and clay and holding them, and also producing glue-like compounds to hold the soil particles. This interconnection, I guess you could think of it as a natural microorganism community underground living in cooperation with the plant community aboveground, which the grass and iceplant, and other alien plants do not possess, is why it is critical to plant [California] native plants in a spaced plant community to control erosion on a slope. From the San Dimas Research Experiment of erosion and hillside runoff. "The concept that surface runoff is rare on any undisturbed watershed...has become accepted among forest hydrologists and seems equally to apply on the San Dimas experimental Forest." (Patric) If the hillside has native plants covering it, there was no runoff and the soil slowly released the water over the season. A trace of runoff from native plant covered slopes. Grass covered slopes lead to hillside erosion and possible landslides. 30-75% of all rainfall on grass- covered slopes ran off. The native plant -covered slopes also stayed drier in winter. Weedy or grass cover slopes get very wet very fast and either shed water or slide mud. Iceplant, Vinca, Ivy fits the weedy role, not the native role. So bare soil or grass (or straw) -covered slopes experience boundless erosion through mudslides (wet slopes) and surface gullies when compared to the "beggarly erosion of slopes planted in a community of native plants". Here is a link that might be useful: How to landscape a hillside slope

I'm enjoying all these comments; it's always fun when a post starts a conversational ball rolling. Seil, your comment is acute, though I would substitute "regularity/irregularity" for "perfection/imperfection". A garden composition can be irregular but perfect (here I'm thinking of my grouping of R. moschata with rosemary behind it against a wall, with wild violets, creeping thyme, anthemis, nepeta, and some wild pea-thing at their feet: it just happened, but is lovely). Henry Mitchell (whom I cite ad nauseam, but it's because he said so much of what's worth saying) noted that there's a difference between a garden's being perfect and its being wonderful, with the implication that it's the wonder that's worth seeking. By the way, I don't by any means despise symmetry, and, correctly dosed, believe it has its place in the garden. In fact I've always wanted a formal garden. But I can never convince my husband that geometrical regularity is inappropriate in a steep, irregularly shaped piece of ground belonging to people who can't afford massive earth-moving operations. Courage, Ingrid. I hope, and believe, that you will always find it's worth it. Martha/docmom, that's the wonder of the Internet, isn't it? that we can engage in these conversations. Thanks for joining in. One point I wanted to emphasize: nature as collaborator. We all know about weather and bugs and wildlife and so on. I allow mother nature a relatively free hand in the garden: I don't water after the first year, don't make war on pests, and welcome little plants that arrive on their own into the beds and grass. So how the garden looks doesn't depend entirely on my own design sense, pocketbook, etc. This increases the element of chance that I spoke of earlier, but it also greatly increases the beauty of the garden, according to my ideas of beauty. A loss of control is necessary for beauty, the real thing. It doesn't come when you call. Jackie, "...And since to look at things in bloom/Fifty years is little room,/About the woodland I will go/to see the cherry hung with snow." I too have been emerging now and then from my absorption in the tasks at hand to marvel at the beauty around me. It's clear from your posts that Nature is a valued collaborator in your garden. Suzy, I think we understand that beauty is subjective (hence the tolerance on this forum): beauty is what moves our heart, and that differs from person to person. Your arguments in your second post make sense, about aesthetic rules that have stood the test of time and genetic built in prepossessions in favor of health and strength. About what we garden for. My goals and desires in my gardening are all tied together in one package and it's difficult to separate them out: I think they're intimately linked, and beauty is only one aim, but tied to all the others. I garden for beauty, and I garden for the health and fertility of my land. My garden can't be a whited sepulcre, glossy without and rotten within. So I'm wary of poisons and synthetic fertilizers because I think they'll be bad for the soil, for beneficial insects, bad for the environment as a whole and for us humans who are part of it. I grow plants that are adapted to my garden's environment so that I'll have to make as few interventions as possible, for example watering, since water isn't overabundant here. I garden to produce oxygen and sequester carbon and anchor the earth and increase its water retention. This has nothing to do with the striving for beauty. Earthworms aren't beautiful. Crumbly black earth and steaming piles of compost aren't beautiful (are they?). Gray March weather with temperatures sitting steadily in the thirties certainly isn't beautiful, yet I remember exchanging congratulations with another gardener on precisely this kind of weather, because we knew it would set up our plants for a splendid spring. If you think of gardening in terms of emotional rewards, then certainly we don't garden only for beauty. Sprouting peony or cyclamen seeds aren't beautiful, but they definitely are exciting. And I think very few of us want a garden; instead, we want to be gardening. So much for gardening solely for beauty. Thanks for bringing that up, Suzy. I think generally people's aesthetic sense isn't totally unlinked to their moral sense; however it has developed, whether genetically programmed or a result of education, if we know a beautiful object has grown out of some form of abuse, it's less beautiful to us, or ceases to be beautiful at all. More than this, the moral element spills over into the aesthetic area. This may also have a genetic basis: our sharp ancestral eye sees the health that underlies, or doesn't, the organism before us. I'm inclined to think--I don't know this for sure--that an ecologically healthier garden (fertile soil, a flora that doesn't require constant heavy intervention) will generally look more beautiful to me that one that is less healthy. People are the same way: healthy people are more appealing to me than unhealthy ones, this referring also to mental and moral and not just physical good health. Boncrow66, thanks so much for you good wishes, and the same to you! Yours sounds like a happy garden. My daughter's smile is beautiful too. Melissa

Generally, a minimum of soil preparation is needed unless you have 'problem' soil. If the soil is very low in organic matter and/or excessively well drained, you should work some good compost or humus into the top few inches. If your soil is underlain by heavy clay, you will probably want to build up by adding amendments, rather than working into the clay layer. All the plants yo mention will benefit from mulching and from working more organic matter into the soil over time. I top-dress my woodland beds with a generous layer of finely-chopped leaves each fall.

My other plants were starting to outcompete the shooting star.Thats why I'm doing something about it.Besides my shooting star,I have dogtooth violets that really have suffered.They have never bloomed and they disappear and are hard to find.I moved out all the columbines.Pulled out all the jewelweed seedlings that would get big and steal sun.I had also put some non native shade plants like astilbe,pulmanaria,lady's mantle and toad lillie's in that bed.I dug out the non natives and threw them on the compost.With my Virginia bluebells the pulmanaria isn't needed.I ordered native astilbe biternata to replace the alien astilbe,but I'm planting those far away from my ephemerals.Im replacing the lady's mantle with native heuchera.I allowed enough jewelweed to grow in another bed where they won't cause trouble.Any plant that hummingbird's and bumblebees flock to stays in my yard.I moved the blue eyed grass also because they seed themselves prolifically.I moved the prenenthus.When I planted the prenanthus it was probably a first year plant and I had no idea what it was.All I knew was it seemed to stay close to the ground and the foliage was very interesting and tropical looking.When the prenanthus started to form a bloom stalk I was shocked at how tall it grew, and it was only after it flowered that I was able to identify it.Anyway I moved my prenanthus away from the ephemerals and I would recommend only moving it when the sun is going to be lost in rainclouds for a couple or few days.It's got sort of succulent like stems and doesn't like being moved.Mine is still wilted.Oh and connected to my ephemeral bed is an area where I made the huge mistake of planting Siberian squill years ago.They have spread like chives and have made their way to the fringes of my special bed.I went to start digging them out but because of the early heat wave they have already gone dormant and can't be held onto while digging to hone in on the bulb.Plus all this year's seeds will be germinating next spring.Im going to exterminate all the squill next spring but it might take 2 or 3 years before it's completely gone.If I add spring beauties and my ephemerals start multiplying they should make up for any nectar and pollen loss caused by the absence of the squill.I don't have a mound or hill to grow my shooting star on, but I've seen it grown successfully on flat ground with a little open space between it and other natives.Im keeping the toad Lilly for one more year to use as a filler.I plan on replacing them with either a clump of native Solomon's plume or false starry Solomon's seal.I just don't have enough of either to make a good sized clump this year.