Am I seeing this right? Your house is going to sit in a bowl cut into a hillside? That rip rap slope is your backyard? This is not good.

In more bad news, the cut slope behind the gravel pile is too steep for easy planting or weeding. It is also a slope of subsoil which tends to have zero available nutrition and no active soil life that plants need to grow well. And to water it? Gravity is not on your side.

Groundcover wise for that back section of the driveway slope, a long effort to get Vinca minor established might be your best plant hope. Critters? That's life.

Hi, I've been researching how to do a slope along side our condo building as well. We don't want to build a retaining wall either - expensive! I haven't contacted the company below yet, as our strata still needs to approve it. They may have suggestions for your lot. https://www.dirtlocker.com/index.php#blog

Thanks, we actually looked at dirtlocker.. and it's pretty pricey for the size we needed, plus nobody in our area has used it ... so we just went with Asian Jasmine ground cover, it grows really fast. Even with some really hard rains this summer, it's been holding up well.

@shoppingchef do you have a photo of how it's doing? We are in zone 6a or 5b depending on your map, in mid Michigan, dealing with a steep slope that has blue clay

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