I just realized I had a pic.

Top row are three Pretty Lady Roses (just nubs right now)

next row are light pink Fairy roses

bottom row Homerun Happy Trails and Pink Splash carpet roses.

all the way to the right is a big patch of Russian Sage (to the right of where my daughter is sitting hard to see)

I don't know about creeping rhyme, but I do grow a low growing sedum in several beds as a substitute for mulch. It has shallow roots and easy to pull up if it becomes a problem.

I use creeping thyme as a groundcover on a slope that is smaller than yours, and it works well, but must be trimmed in spring after winter gives it some ragged edges along a sidewalk. It does stabilize the soil and is easy to control, growing slowly. Something else you might try among the thyme is lavender which likes the good drainage of a slope. Diane

also "creeping" rosemary (not sure what it's called in English)

Awesome suggestions thank you!!

Deborah I was thinking about a sedum also I'm glad it's working out for you.

Nanadoll thank you for the tips super helpful!

bart- never heard of creeping rosemary sounds wonderful I will have to check it out!

Usually called prostrate rosemary in English. It's a rosemary that branches sideways rather than growing straight up. So it grows along the ground, and is also nice to trail over the edge of a retaining wall.

I use creeping thyme instead of mulch, it does a great job of keeping weeds at bay.

That is one of my goals, altorama: to get ground-covering perennials to act as a living mulch in my own garden. But I've only just started and my garden is so big that it's gonna take a while...

Thanks, theparsley! Though I am American, I've lived in Italy for so long that sometimes I fumble about over English terms. Prostrate rosemary is a very handsome plant. Now that I got the road widened to permit me to drive the car down to the lower end of my garden,I, too, have a sharp slope like Ashley's which I will have to plant up as well, so I'm grateful for this thread.

I'm concerned that the rosemary won't be hardy in 6b. Thyme doesn't die back to the ground every Wiinter and re-emerge every Spring, so mulching there will be annoying. Holding back a slope is done more by roots than top-growth, so don't look at only evergreen choices. I think you should check out Ceratostigma plumbaginoides. It will spread, but not overwhelm roses or anything else growing taller. Its network of roots will hold the slope, and it doesn't emerge until about now, so an early Spring mulch refresher wouldn't smother it. I cut back stems in late Winter to neaten it up, but you could leave them to further grip the mulch on the slope. Being as new growth starts in the Spring from the ground, you wouldn't have to worry about keeping the mulch under it rather than on top of it.

:-)

~Christopher

I don't use mulch so I have no trouble with the thyme, however in the fall it needs to be pulled out when it gets too close to a rose or a perennial. It's very shallow rooted and easy to pull up.

I am going to check out Christopher's suggestions, they sound interesting.

I'll try to find some pictures of how it looks with the thyme.

Mulching a slope like that is just an exercise in frustration. The first rainstorm washes it all down. I'm not sure creeping thyme has the root system necessary to hold the soil in place, being shallow rooted as has been mentioned several times here.

My personal go to plant for steep slopes is running daylilies. They will eat the slope, and the roses, and pretty much everything else. And that is going to be the problem. Plants will deep, fibrous root systems that hold slopes don't tend to be small or well behaved.

Bluestone has a separate section for groundcovers

https://www.bluestoneperennials.com/groundcovers.html?ext_title=All%20Ground%20Covers

I have mulch but eventually I'd like my ground cover to take over

Whatever groundcover you choose needs to be compatible with the requirements of the roses. Creeping thyme prefers things on the dry side, as does both the lavender and the rosemary (btw, creeping rosemary is not as winter hardy as upright - doubt it would survive that zone) and roses like frequent irrigation and fertilization.

I'd consider a creeping form of hardy geranium or Veronica 'Georgia Blue'. I'd also intersperse other low growing perennials.......geum comes to mind but there are others. Perhaps dwarf penstemon.

If you use drip irrigation on roses, you can leave dry loving companions without an emitter and they do well.

Wooly thyme and lemon thyme are somewhat less invasive; to keep them in place you may want to interplant some deeper rooted ground cover.

OH man, I'm with Christopher! I LOVE plumbago (ceratostigma), which also offers fall foliage color (red). It's bare in winter tho.

Yes, it's bare in the Winter, but that network of thin stems and roots would keep the mulch from sliding down. In the sloped spot shown by the OP, I'd skip the cutting back of dead stems until after a fresh layer of mulch was added in Spring, and I'd be sure to leave some stem showing above the mulch.

:-)

~Christopher

This sounds interesting! I hate the bagged mulches for a number of reasons and the times I did use it I watched all that time, work and money wash away! Arrgh!

Ceratostigma looks so beautiful in pictures, but in my climate I'd worry about the fact that it isn't ever-green. I could easily see it becoming infested very, very quickly by perennial evergreen weeds. Also, I'd worry that it'd have trouble blooming well for me, since it blooms late and I can't water. But I'm here in Tuscany, Italy; around a zone 8.; very different from Ashley's climate.

Useful thread! I have a similar very slop-ey situation, also similar love of thyme.

I'm worried my slope is a bit too shady for thymes but I might give them a whirl. Also we've got a stinging nettle infestation which makes things tricky (but good for the compost! :) ).

I like to think the slope is an oportunity to give plants who love sharp drainage exactly what they're looking for.... unfortunately most of those plants do NOT like a north-westerly exposure :(

bugleweed?