hillside landscaping

AndyH24 said:

I have a hillside covered with junipers and I was wondering if there is anything I can do to make it look a little better? My property ends right at the bottom of the junipers and then my neighbors house is about 8 - 10' away. Here are a few pics. anyone have any ideas to make it look better? thanks!

Click to expand...

Make it into an actual bed and place some fast growing evergreens in there to provide privacy. That just looks out of place currently with no point to it.

I agree, make it into a bed. You could plant some other things around it but the first thing you can do that doesn't cost much would be to cut an edge around the "bed" and mulch it. I'll try to explain it if you don't know what that means...
Essentially you need to take the grass out around the perimeter of the bed and give yourself a 3-5" line of dirt from the edge of the bushes to the start of the grass. When you take the grass out that is inside that perimeter you will leave small trench that is a few inches lower than the grass around it, you want that. Then you would cover that trench section in with some mulch.

Does that make sense?

I like the idea of making it into a bed and planting other stuff in there. Im not sure how to go about it though. The junipers at the bottom of the hill are right on the property line so I cant dig a trench down there. Should I remove some junipers to make room to plant other stuff?

The junipers are like a blank canvas, and you could create any shape you want with a little trimming and removal. You could change it into a half moon, kidney shape, uniform rectangle, or something more wild like a series of squares, lines or circles (I'm thinking Martha Schwartz here). You can also change it by adding trees and shrubs in specific locations, depends upon what kind of look you want.

For a natural look, add one conifer and three flowering shrubs/ornamental grasses at the top corner, one deciduous tree and three flowering shrubs/ornamental grasses at the opposite bottom corner, and one deciduous or conifer tree plus 5 flowering shrubs/ornamental grasses/ perennials somewhere towards the middle, but not perfectly centered. You may also want to trim/remove some junipers on the edges to make it more natural looking.

You might want to look through some landscaping books at the library to get ideas

Kevin
www.home-additions-startup-guide.com

OMG Obn2012_Aus That timber frame is such a good idea for a hillside space! Do you have any further info about constructing it?