taterville, Things are coming along very nicely. I bet when you were in school you were one of those students that always did your homework; I never did mine. lol Most of your measurements worked fine, but something went wrong with the measurement of point A. That's my fault, not yours; my instructions were not adequate for the task. As we go along, there will be times when you need to mark a place on the ground in a semi-permanent way. Any number of things can be used; stakes, tent pegs, or nails with a ribbon attached. Now let me revisit the location of point A. You will need to place a marker at point A that is at the bottom toe of the slope about mid way in the curved transition between the relative straight line of the toe running behind your house and the straight line of the toe running along the side of your house. Begin at point A and measure along a line parallel to the back of your house to a point that aligns with the back of your house, shown in my graphic as point B. Earlier you gave that distance as 4ft 11 inches. That may have been correct, but because we may now be starting from a new location for A, you will need to repeat this measurement. Now go back to point A and measure parallel to the side of your house to a point that aligns with the back corner of your house shown as point C. Think of the box defined by the the three points and the back corner of your house as a rectangle. It is the width and length of this rectangle we seek. You did not give a distance from point E to F and I assume that the slope is just too long and slick to make the measurement. That's OK, there are other ways to find the location of point F. I'll prepare some instructions on how to go about it. You are getting close to providing the data needed to produce a base map defining the terrain you have. It wont have the precision of that of a professional, but is certainly suitable for planning purposes. The precision can be improved as needed. Taking what can be used from your photos, the survey, and the measurements requested by yardvaark and myself, I have made a drawing. Contours shown are at 1 ft intervals. Scale, small squares equal 2ft. I will add to and make corrections as additional data comes in. Below is a thumbnail. The full sized drawing Is in the optional link. I would invite everyone to use any of the graphics I provide to convey your ideas for the site. Here is a link that might be useful:

Inspiration photo showing tall groundcover around tree. We just tapered the asphalt to help direct stormwater to its sewer and are doing some backfilling. The area gets occasional stormwater, but is fairly dry. clay. zone 6. I am trying to plan the area to the left of the stairs. I like the idea of breaking up the area with a light airy tree or shrub (red twig dogwood?) or tall grass, surrounded by a rectangle of a taller groundcover centered in front of the balconies. And then and then a workhorse low viney ground for the balance. What about a border next to the parking lot and next to the stairs - salt tolerant. wild geranium? wild onion? canada anemone? giant liriope? 1-3 ft sedge? The area does not need shade and I'm a little afraid of getting back to my BEFORE pictures. Doom. leaves. debris. Drawn to scale - each block is 5 ft. The sloped section of the leftmost rectangle where I am starting is 15ft x 50ft. Stars are existing shrubs, trees. Any suggestions? Thank you for reading

That is something you should post in the hostas forum. I have never had the problem with slugs. I put hostas in full morning light and afternoon shade for there leaves don't burn.

"I really like the idea of trying to raise the canopy. That's something I can do " With a simple hand pole pruner, you can saw off all the low limbs and gather them up in fairly short order. If you must bundle them up for pick-up, begin at the tip end cutting them into the requisite lengths with loppers. Buy quality tools, especially loppers as they will need to hold up to a lot of abuse for this job. "I'm def not a fan of English Ivy though. It's all over the backyard and super invasive. I know it can look decent if managed, but for one reason or another people always seem to let it go." Isn't it completely the people's choice to let it go or not? Let's put this in perspective. English ivy is capable of covering huge amounts of heavily shaded ground with a uniform, beautiful texture, where no grass will grow. It's a workhorse in that department. Imagine if it was grass instead, it would need to be mowed and edged every week all throughout the growing season. That's a fair amount of man-hours. But what do people do with ivy .... absolutely nothing, usually for years! At the end of that they say it's invasive and unmanageable! Ivy never needs height mowing so that's a huge time saver. Where it meets civilized conditions, it needs edging about once a month or at most every 2 weeks if one is very picky. It needs "edging" at trees, but as I already explained, that's a quick, easy job, required only once per year. It's fine to make a personal decision not to have ivy, but then one must accept one of the alternatives ... other plants that collectively require much more labor to maintain, or a dry, barren look of mulch alone. If you bought a back yard that already has ivy, why not explore how to make it useful for you instead of thinking that it's the enemy and must be held in contempt or eradicated? It's already there so not a question of importing an "invasive" species. When I lived in Atlanta, English ivy (it was already there for me, too) was the plant that made having a nice yard in wooded conditions possible.