I confess, I am not seeing any rhyme or reason to the plan, other than "here are some nice shrubs." The forms don't complement the slope itself. They will be shrubs sticking up on a slope. You will not buy huge specimens and they will not grow at the same rate so ultimate heights and blending doesn't seem a sure thing. The shrubs won't provide enough erosion/weed control; if ivy is to be the basis of groundcover/erosion control, plugs should be set throught the shrub area, too, though it may not go with the shrubs (competes?)and/or the shrubs might be superfluous (dark green laurels sticking up out of dark green ivy). How is the vinca and ivy going to be integrated/compete. If you aren't terracing, wouldn't it almost be better to acknowledge the slope but have a pretty, green slope or a few contrasting greens("my house is at the top of a hill, by doggies, so use the steps!")? Perhaps use just a whole lot of groundcover--this could be explored further as to type;; I don't recall sun/water conditions--vinca for flowers? Ivy for sun/shade/drought/indestructible? Both good for uniform green color, cheap, fast spread. Carpet junipers? Daffodil idea is great for breakthrough color, no maintenance. Focus a few small trees or largish shrubs somehow related to what needs to be accomplished at stair way or other "focal" or grounding points (someone help me here, I am out of my league, other posters already said this.) These ideas are already in the above posts but the great thing about your posted plan is that to me it illustrates how those alternatives would be preferable. Don't mean to appear so negative and without precise alternatives. You DO have a plan. Maybe it is providing more important form and color interest than I can see. But it strikes me as very cookie cutter, foundation-ish and not really slope- or function- oriented. If somehow you could photoshop the same image with more of the down-flowing, uniform groundcover, correct color (not brown mulch, though mulch would be needed for the first couple of years) and the focal points I think the difference in "feel" would be more obvious. Youu would put divide your budget into LOTS of groundcover pots and a few specimens. Your existing shrubs could probably be configured in somehow for grounding. Either way you will have mulch/watering/weeding for several years until established. Can you "work" with the person who did your plan, saying, how 'bout something more like this....? Anyway, just think how much farther along you are in your thinking, planning, evaluating. Hopefully, it's all heading toward the ultimate goal of a plan that works best for you.

There is so much discussion out there about this issue. The Apple forums are full of threads. Some cite a Mac/Windows issue, but I see sideways photos on my Mac devices, so it's not necessarily that. There is an orientation flag embedded in photos, indicating right-side-up. Clearly it doesn't always work, e.g., here on GW. Maybe it's the board software? I have both an iPhone and iPad. I never take pics with my iPad, which isn't the current model. I have an iPhone 5S and take photos in both portrait and landscape modes all the time. Whether I'm sending one as an email attachment, directly to Facebook or to Flickr (where all my photos posted here reside), I never get orientation mishaps. I never post directly from my iPhone to GW. I always import into iPhoto, crop if necessary, save to my Desktop with a logical filename, and then upload to Flickr. If you take a photo in landscape orientation, even if your iPad thoughtfully rotates it for you in viewing mode, the image file may still think it belongs laying on its side. When you import into, say, iPhoto, you can rotate the file and it gets saved that way, esp. if you export it to your Desktop with a new filename. Yes, an extra step or two, but just part of a workflow that corrects the issue.

I thank you both for the testimonials. I'm looking forward to the arrival of my new iPhone 6+...perhaps it will go fine with my Kindle Fire HDX. One reason I went that route was the apps available. Have you tried one called WaterLog? It transforms photos into water color paintings and such as that. It is to be my first app purchase. Sad to say, I cannot install iTunes on my Windows 7 computer. I'll have to get rid of Norton AVirus and try again.

Well, at least those Turk's caps could also be pretty there for a year or three before they out grow the cedar sage size you had in mind. Though sounds like maybe you shouldn't let them go for too long if you're thinking of recruiting Bob to dig them up again. Both TC and cedar sage frequently show up on "Plants for Shade" lists, but can also do surprisingly well in blazing afternoon sun - two of my favorites for that sort of adaptability. Even though we had larger plants, I just placed small 2nd or 3rd year TC volunteers around our cedar elm because when they get much beyond that it seems the root balls become too big to easily fit among the inner root-zone of established trees.... or to even dig them up to move them in the first place. The storm clean-up phase didn't wrap up around here until the last of the largest stumps were taken out with monstrous grinders by mid-May. With so much shade lost due to the many big trees destroyed or damaged, the next phase has been a lot of moving or replacing of plants, hardscape changes, and other experimenting around the neighborhood to adapt to all the new and unfamiliar light. This discussion has seemed much more like a related branch of the same "adventure" than any hijacking. :-)