Anyone recommending large soft leaved woodland habitat plants such as Hostas or Beschornerias for high desert conditions obviously doesn't have a clue about desert landscaping. Similarly thinking that a pond/waterfall feature so exposed to the elements seems futile, or at the least expensive in time and money to keep functioning. Water features would make much more sense in a protected from wind and brutal sun within a courtyard garden. Erosion control in high desert conditions is as much about wind erosion and the sporadic torrential cloudburst which dumps intense rain over a short period of time. As such, local professional expertise and knowledge of your soil type is critical for efficiently addressing the best approach for ersion control. I'd recommend using adapted native and hardy exotic plants of lowest water use to stabilize those slopes with some grading to bank rainfall to percolate into the soil where possible. Again, visiting local water agency water conservation demonstration gardens would be most useful in helping be more pragmatic about landscaping your high desert back yard.

Step 1 is to divide the area from the lawn, you may put pavers from place like Home Depot or just dig down & put in a strip that will divide ground cover from lawn. Chances are the ground cover will grow both up & down. Your lawn seed will also run down into bottom part. My lawn in back grows very deep because we went to Tenn. & brought some home on tent we had, I was cleaning it after the trip & next thing I knew had lot of miserable very deep grass to deal with so you need to dig down & see where roots end. Home Depot sells a roll of brown or black edger that is about 8-10 in wide & maybe 20 ft long or more. You would pretty much bury it except for top edge sticking up maybe 1-2 in. It will be work at 1st but once ground cover fills in shouldn't be too bad. If you want less chance of the 2 mixing you could then add a small wall of stone on top of the barrier couple of stones high,not really stone wall just look like it. back of these pavers is a little narrower than front so you can curve it a little across the yard. Lay a garden hose out to see where it looks right to dig out for whatever you are going to do. This is not a 1 weekend job unless you have lots of help & money. Drove down the street today in rain & saw the mess my neighbor has. Yard all dug out, sprinkler pipe all over & trenches & none of it laid(wonder if it will be stolen by morning) & at least $500 of sod very carelessly thrown on driveway. 1 hot day & he's got a dried out mess. If you want sprinklers that comes before anything else. If you just seed the top of yard & water the seed will end up mostly where you want the ground cover & you just wasted your money. That is why you need to divide it 1st. Then dig out 1 side at a time & have tarp handy as good heavy rain will take out all your top soil. When you get ground cover keep it in fairly shady area & water if they dry out at all. Ground you put the new plants in needs to be moist but not soaked to about 1 ft down. Look at neighborhood & see what ground cover you like. Does it freeze there? How tall do you want it? Green, plum colored or lt. green. Go to library & get landscaping book or 2. Go to nursery & check out what they have in your area. Don't just throw your money on the ground like my neighbors did today! Ok,you can do this yourself, just take a couple of days to find out what you like. I love your house. I really think the front door needs a pretty color on it to make it inviting. You have a lot to work with & you can really have a lovely place there. My 1st thought was make a cottage type garden up to steps & then lawn up to house. For that I would just do the barrier & low wall(not cemented)put the seed in lawn part & wait for spring, then dig out & put in what you carefully chose over the winter that won't be too much work & trimming. There are no perfect ground covers!! Some better than others & work better in Georgia than Ca. For cottage garden in spring several packages of perennial seeds in that lower part. They require some cleaning out just like your ground cover will at times. Gardening is a tossup but it is healthy work & most people enjoy having a nice yard & you do get to see results of your labors. Good luck!

Cherry, The stone varies by weight and type. I saw several pallets that would look nice but since I have MANY pink roses up on the hill, I wanted stone that did not have orange hues in it. This also meant that I had to steer clear of many of the black and black veined stone as these contain iron. The iron stone rusts over time and you end up with quite orange rocks. The pallet I found was called chocolate something-or-other. I saw no orange stones and the landscaper said that there was very little iron content in these particular pallets. One pallet was 2040lbs and the other was 1995. I think that together with delivery they cost me around 420.00. If you know a contractor you can have him request the stone for you and save up to 15%. Knee pads and good leather gloves are required as well as stretching before and especially after you work. I was amazed that the stretching I did after I came in actually helped me feel fine the next morning. I worked on it over time and with plenty of rest, water and stretching each day. I can't say I want to move stone again, but I have always wanted to visit Long Island. ;o)

I'm only responding because this forum is so dead and it would be nice if someone from New England would respond. I'm not sure what grows in your area, but I do love to sit outside by our fire pit. Actually, we have two. One looks over the city lights and our pool. We have a pine grove at the bottom of our hill. We are in a high fire danger zone, so we purchased two propane fire-pits. No sparks. Hubby built a nice picnic table and we really enjoy sitting there. The boulder shoots the heat a long way and we can really feel it. Sorry for the sideways image. We have rosemary planted on our hillsides and it's good for erosion control. I just don't know if it grows where you are. Maybe you should post in the New England States type forums? Might get more ideas. I'd replace your chairs with Adirondacks. A lot classier!