How much area does this space cover? I agree that vinca minor (periwinkle) and honeysuckle are good bank covers. You mention trees. What kind of trees, how much spread, and are there surface roots? We've had good luck on the bank outside of our fence with iris and day lilies. There is also the honeysuckle and periwinkle ground cover ( over a very rocky and dry area). Periodically it, gets cut with a weed eater. That's all. We also build up the areas under the trees with the fall leaves. We put them in piles and leave them. We usually keep them in place with welded wire cages. In spring we put on some top soil and plant in it. We have transferred day lilies , iris, and stoksia aster into a dry corner area under trees. Tiger lilies and tall phlox are also doing well there. The phlox was there when we came here 18 years ago. The only thing we have done to it has been to thin it out and cut it down when finished blooming. It is in full bloom now. I feel the most important thing is to build up the soil well enough to nurture the roots of the plants and to choose plants with shallow roots or rhizomes, such as the iris and day lilies. That also helps with the erosion. There is nothing blooming continually but the day lilies follow the iris and there has been color since spring. Many of the plants we have used have been divisions shared by neighbors. One of the prettiest gardens I have ever seen was a corner of a city block filled with zinnias entwined with blue morning glory. It might be a little hot and dry now for seed sowing but zinnias germinate and grow fast and come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. For a fast annual garden a variety of zinnias would be enough. Last fall when the zinnias had gone to seed I pulled them and piled them around a stump. There is now a patch of blooming zinnias there and I haven't done another thing to it. We also have a self sowing petunia that returns year after year and homestead purple verbena which has been very durable. Hope you will give us feed back. EP

Ideas and uncertainties? Best way is to look in the besement below and in the attic above. But the design of the house may offer a clue. If the wall is in the center part of the house and is parallel to the long axis of the house (like a center hallway wall), and the joists below in the basement or the joists above in the attic (not trusses) are running perpendicular to the wall in question, and are overlapped/spliced either on top of or underneath teh wall in question, then it may be load bearing. You want to find out of the wall has a load on it from above...typically shown by overlapping joists resting on the top plate of the wall...the wall would be supporting the rafters at the overlap. And you want to see if that wall is transferring a load to a beam below in the basement...typically shown by a beam in the basement running parallel to, and being under or within a foot of, the bottom of the wall in question. If you look in the basement and the first floor joists under the wall in question are running parallel to the wall in question, then it's likely that it is not a load bearing wall. If your roof has trusses in the attic, then it may not be transferring roof loads to the top of the wall. Trusses usually transfer loads to the exterior walls only. Not always, but usually. If you have a second floor above this one, and if there is not a second-floor wall directly above the wall in question, or a column transferring a point load, then it may not be a load-bearing wall. Muddled ideas. Lots of "maybe" and "mights". It also depends on how your roof is cut up. Tough to diagnose over the internet. Best, Mongo

Wow! I think your kitchen has a lot of cabinets, more than my second house had and we had a similar problem. We built a pantry closet on the wall where your cart is about 15 inches out form the wall. The microwaves were deeper then and we used the stud space to increase the depth of the pantry by about 3 inches so that it was 18 inches deep. You could do less if needed depending on microwave you choose. My husband put in shelves according to our needs and installed doors on the top and bottom. That pantry was a lifesaver. That could be a very cost saving solution. The less deep you do it, the wider you can go. Use boxes to get a feel if the pantry would work there. If you were able to move your doorway to the DR and move your fridge to the cart wall and flank it with a pantry on one side and a cabinet with on the other side, that would be nice. It would really help if you drew your layout on graph paper with door cabinet walkway measurements listed.

Yes that is what a dormant hosta looks like. The top of the plant plant is at the pointy end of your cute leaf dish. You could swish the whole thing in a bucket to get the peat off and you will see it more clearly. Then you can plant it in a pot and wait to see the eye begin to turn into a shoot in a few weeks, and then begin to water it...OR... If you don't want to pot it now, just wrap that wad of peat and roots in a barely damp paper towel, then in a zip lock bag zipped up 95% closed and put it in the fridge. Peek at it every few weeks to make sure it hasn't started to grow. The time spent in your warm house may have triggered it to grow. Once the buds turn to shoots a inch long it will need to have a home of its own. Have fun with it! -Babka