Nah, I disagree with most of the above. I do my fall planting in earnest in late August and with the unusually cool & rainy summer we've had this year, I've been transplanting and planting all summer and pretty much letting nature do the work of watering in this year, its a good year for planting. Any kind of succulent or cactus can be planted and just walked away from, meaning totally ignored which is usually the best thing since most deaths come from too much molly-coddling and over watering. Treat them like forgotten children and they will reward you. So I totally disagree there's no plant that can be planted in August. I just moved a well established cactus here smack in the middle of the day in the hot sun and it won't mind a bit & I'm going to dig up some hesperaloe's tomorrow and move them once the roots callous. Wow, you've just described a perfect spot for certain plants. First to come to mind is the one I just mentioned, hesperaloe or 'pink yucca', however, its not a yucca, its in the lily family. I looked it up, it will take zone 5 if dry. These look great in a grouping. Stick them in the ground and forget them, they will do fine. I've seen many plantings where they mix them with drifts of grasses and the texture is to die for. Its used along roads here due to its low maintenance, looks and low water needs. Looks stunning. True yucca is another easy plant but choose carefully, there are nice well behaved pretty ones and others that are bullies and become something you regret. Yucca rostrata s a good one if it will grow in zone 5 and your winter is on the dry side or the drainage is very good. Little Bluestem grass. In a spot like that you should be able to grow the highly enviable stiff light blue vertical specimens because they love torture like that and they tend to flop in good soil with too much moisture or shade. Water in the plants for the first week, then they will do fine on their own. I've been moving them around all summer, I just finished planting some more and they are unflapped. Santa Rosa will be restocked coming up with all the really nice types when their fall sales begin. They are very popular so they ran out early this year of every type. Many other ornamental grasses would also work (but bluestem is so gorgeous I have to push it). Native grasses would do the best, imported ones such as the over used Miscanthus grasses are often water suckers that would need supplemental watering when dry in that kind of sun and there's all that horrible spring trimming of sharp leaves with those plus that dying in the center down the road when they must be dug up and divided which is not fun to do. Natives are much easier. Russian Sage is a plant that would definitely do well there. Water it in when planting and keep it moist for a couple weeks and it should do fine for you with little or no follow up. Too much water makes them flop. Once September gets here, you should be fine. Crepe Myrtle would be easy in the heat but it might not do zone 5, you could check, they will take the dry and heat with ease and bloom over a long period. Rose of Sharon is another workhorse that seems to take any amount of sun and drought and bloom without problems. Any native plant that is a sun lover in your area will also prove to be a good choice. You might want to google to see whats native in your parts, these plants will be OK on their own since they are adjusted to your conditions and soil type without human intervention. Woops, I nearly forgot. Artemisia is a great choice for that kind of spot. They would do fine. I just planted three Prowis Castle to add to a silver garden I'm working on and they adjusted right in, no problem, no sulks. Valerie finnis is a great one. I just moved some to fill in a spot. This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Thu, Aug 7, 14 at 23:37

I think stonecrop sedums might be a good alternative as well, a lot of them are ground covers that are hardy and have pretty flowers that bloom through late fall. There seem to be several types; I have one that I think is called Coastal Gem which I got from my friend's mom up in Mendocino, CA, but these links talk about a bunch of other types that might work too. http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/sedum-growing-guide http://www.finegardening.com/plantguide/genus/sedum.aspx Good luck!

I have two methods for getting rid of rocks and you're not going to like either one. When they're in my crop fields, my tractor turns them up when I plow or harrow. I either toss them onto the edge of the field where I'm not planting anything or I toss them in the loader and find someplace else to dump them. That's the easy method. When they're in my yard where I want to plant flowers, I dig them out with a shovel and either edge the new flower beds with them or load them into a wheelbarrow or little red wagon and dump them elsewhere. This is my least favorite method and the only advice I can give for doing it this way is: "Don't think, just do." If you think about how awful it is, you'll never get it done. I guess that technically I have three methods for getting rid of them. The third would be to pretend that they're not there in the first place. About six inches or so below my front lawn are loads of very large flat rocks that were where the carriages used to turn around when our house was a stagecoach stop. I have been slowly converting the front lawn into a flower garden and I slam my shovel into those rocks all of the time. I have pulled some of them out, but I have left most of them where I found them. The flowers don't seem to mind, and that includes everything from bulbs to perennials to roses. I guess that makes this the easiest method. HAHA!!

Yes .. the yard does slope towards the house. there are these 4" drain buckets about 4 feet away from foundation that pick up the water and it does drain into a 4" pipe which goes all the way from backyard to the curb. However as I found out this winter, the drain buckets get overwhelmed in a consistent heavy downpour. We had very heavy rain in San Diego last winter and it does leave an inch of water pooling around the house. Unfortunately we are not renting. I am going to put more drain buckets upslope to catch the water say 15, 20 feet away from the house