By 'under the sage' I mean between and around the bases of the sage plants.. When the bulbs start blooming they will be under where the top growth of the sage is (or was, before you cut it back...) The early crocuses may be mostly finished blooming by the time you cut the sage back, but the anemones bloom a bit later so they are visible after the sage is cut back. When you buy the bulbs in the fall, look for crocuses that say 'mid season' or 'late' if you can find them, so they will still be in bloom after the sage is cut back. Crocuses and Anemone Blanda are easy to find in bulk bags in 'big box' stores in the fall so they are relatively inexpensive. You could buy a wide variety of small bulbs. Check the recommended planting depth and buy ones with the same planting depth required. Then you can mix them all together in a bucket and choose a bulb at random when you plant them. That way you get a nice natural mix of colors and shapes. The small bulbs only need to go a couple of inches deep so are easier to plant than tulips and daffodils that need to go at least 6" deep! Plant lots of the little bulbs for a good display. You could use any (bigger) rocks you dig up as a low ornamental wall at the base of the slope. Thyme looks good spilling over rocks. When you plant, I'd be inclined to place things like daylilies and other perennials, and potentilla shrubs (if you're planting them) first. Then plant thyme on the lower 1/3-1/4 of the slope. Then fill in at the top and around the shrubs and perennials with the sage. Thyme looks good spilling out from under the sage. If it is planted in between the sage plants, the sage might shade it a bit too much. If the thyme is happy, it will move into vacant spaces on its own. Garlic and/or onion chives are nice ornamental and edible additions that can be tucked into a few places. Beware though of more aggressive spreading herbs like mints and oregano (a mint relative) because they will spread from the roots as well as seed a round. Beware of Lemon Balm for the same reason. Do you have kids? Kids tend to like the herb scents. You might want to add a plant or two of lemon thyme and orange-scented thyme. They are less vigorous than ordinary thyme so it's best to limit them to just a couple of fun specimens and let the ordinary thyme be the groundcover.

I am with Dottie that you would do well to plant next fall (mid-September to late October in your zone) to allow root growth but have less stress on the plants due to shorter, cooler days. Regardless of what you plant, it will need regular water until the ground freezes. This season you can evaluate the site and plan so that you are ready come fall. I also agree with Dottie about voles - you could ask on the perennial forum or on the shrub forum (whatever type of plant you end up with) for suggestions that seem less attractive to voles. Most types of deodar cedar (Cedrus deodara) are hardy to zone 7, so not an option for you, though there are some types rated for colder temperatures such as 'Kashmir', 'Shalimar' and 'Polar Winter'. I'd check around at local garden centers, botanical gardens, and arboretums to see if anyone has local information as to how they do before planting them. It's tough having a borderline hardy tree that does well for several years and then is half-killed during a particularly cold winter. My inclination would be to plant native plants or ones that you are sure don't have escapist tendencies since you are on the edge woodlands, and plants such as ivy or vinca can grow into the woods, disrupting the native plants. You may find that you have already existing woodland spring wildflowers when you go into the woods in the spring. (Be aware that spring is the worst time for ticks, though they around all of the warm season, so get in the habit of doing a careful check of clothes whenever you have been out in the yard, and of your entire body at least once a day if you have been outside at all. It takes a few minutes, but I include it in my bedtime routine and haven't had an embedded tick yet, though I find them on my skin and clothes often.) Light levels: If you plant the slope with typical meadow wildflowers, you may have mixed results, depending on the amount of sun you have. Something like Rudbeckia is really a sun flower, and so may not do particularly well there. I would start taking photos at 8:00, 10, noon, 2, and 4:00. Do this at the spring solstice (mid-March, 1st day of spring), and about once a month up until the summer solstice (mid-June, 1st day of summer.) This will give you a good idea of how much sun you actually get there. If you want to try Rudbeckia, I'd go ahead and do that this spring since it will establish better with less established grass. By planting time, you may have a pretty good idea of how much sun the area gets. Water and nutrients: You might want to ID the trees along the top of the slope; depending on what you have, they may send out more or fewer shallow roots into the slope area to compete with whatever you plant. I say this because they look to me like red maples, which have fast-growing shallow roots and will compete for water and nutrients with whatever you plant. So the sooner you plant, the sooner what you plant gets established enough to be able to compete with the red maples. If you have oaks, they won't be an issue since their roots are deeper. Watch the slope and see how water levels fluctuate over the year. If it is a recently cut bank, the soil may actually be subsoil and benefit from adding organic matter to the surface, or there may be springs that will cause problems if not addressed. I'd also get a soil test done (Cornell U does them among other places) to see what will grow well in your soil. For instance, that might be a lovely place for some rhododendrons, but only if you have acid soil. Mowing: If you end up deciding to keep this meadow, it will need mowing 2-4 times a year with a brush mower to keep out woody plants. In my area those woodies include sweet fern, red maple, staghorn, sumac, white pine, black cherry, all of which like open areas for their seedlings. Seeds will blow in or be brought in by animals, and some of them will start growing, often including non-native invasives such as buckthorn, bittersweet, barberry, burning bush, and Japanese honeysuckle. In the northeast and Great Lakes area, unmowed areas will always turn into forest eventually, so you want to mow to prevent the process from getting started. In our field we time mowings to allow the ground-nesting birds' chicks to hatch undisturbed (turkeys are our most frequent ground nesters), and to allow certain plants to bloom, but for a chunk of time it is just mowed field. You can time one of your mowings for early fall just before the leaves change color, which will allow flower seeds to ripen but prevent baby trees from storing nutrients. Your landscaper may have access to a brush mower to do this for you. Regardless, the part you keep for sledding will need either regular mowed grass or the periodic Consider a mixed shrub border for the less steep part of the slope. I have one that is heavily mulched or groundcovers between plants and edged to keep out grass, and I only spend a few hours a year (perhaps an hour a month) weeding it, and it's probably about 15'x70'. It provides blooms, varied summer foliage, winter evergreens and berries, and colorful fall foliage for very little maintenance work. In the late fall or early spring I use hedge clippers to whack off the perennials and clematis to ground level. This one is full sun, but I have others in less than half day sun with a mix of shrubs and a few perennials, also edged and heavily mulched. This one is about 5 years old. Fall Spring early Winter So you have lots of options, but specific plant recommendations depend on your goals, your soil, and your sun levels.

"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.

Doug, wow! Your illustration is so detailed and helps to give me a better idea of how to add some depth and dimension in the front. I'm really keen on the symmetry of your first sketch, with what I believe to be liriope? I honestly never thought about extending the retaining wall to the front elevation or adding steps. Thanks for taking the time to sketch up those concepts. This is likely the direction we will go as the stone from the existing retaining wall is also used for the pathway the leads from the driveway to the back patio and around the entire back of the house. In evaluating ground cover, Pachysandra is one I seemed to have overlooked. We have two huge maple trees at the very bottom of the front yard and don't want to plant anything that will pose a threat to them. Great suggestion there. What is a reasonable range to expect for a project of this scope? I understand every region and professional is different, among many other countless factors. Just wondering if this is $8k-$10k vs. $15k-$20k job.