How to Design Hillsides

Design hillsides for beauty and practicality

Designing hillside landscaping requires planning. You want to make sure the hillside is stable and remains that way. With proper drainage and planting, you can make any hillside as beautiful and decorative as any other area of the landscape. Maybe even more!

Instructions

1. There are many ways to design a beautiful hillside. You can keep it very simple or make it into something productive or artistic.

2. 

   Simple ways of designing hillsides would be to plant them completely with a mat-rooting type of ground cover that will hold the soil in place. Grasses, succulents like ice plant, and creeping ground-cover plants like the low-growing cottoneaster are good solutions. If you live in a dry climate you will need to irrigate these plants. The best way to do that is with low volume sprinklers that will deliver water in a light sprinkle. Otherwise the water will wash away down the hill without leaving much to sink into the soil for the plants' roots.

3. 

   Another way to handle a hillside is to grow shrubs or small trees. Use groupings of the same plants or trees and limit the varieties so there is repetition and continuity. You can also try spreading drifts of wildflower seed in the autumn and early spring to cover your hillside with spring flowers.

4. 

   A practical variation to the tree idea is to plant an orchard. Use smaller sized trees unless you have a lot of hillside to cover. Trees have large root systems and need space to grow. If you plant an orchard, make sure there are moats dug around the base of the trees to trap water and let it sink in. Slow bubbler water heads piped directly to the trees are good for watering. You can put large rocks or boards or other interesting looking barriers in front of the young trees to keep water from washing away until the roots are deeply established. You might also want to carve out pathways and steps on the hill to offer access to the trees for trimming and harvesting.

5. 

   Or you can really design out your hillside and make it into something creative. Like any design, I really recommend you draw a plan or have a designer or landscape architect draw one for you. You will avoid a lot of mistakes and regrets by putting your ideas on paper before the installation. It will make you think through your ideas, too.

6. One practical way to design your hillside is to tier it into terraces. This means digging large planter-like 'steps' into the hillside and supporting them with wood, retaining walls, rocks or other means. Each 'step' becomes a garden bed. Planting trailing plants along the front edge can create an ornamental cascading effect.

7. 

   Consider creating sections out of the hillside dividing it with paths and steps. This not only designs the hill, but affords easy passage for maintenance. You might want to create a dry river bed curving down the slope and ending in the garden with a waterfall or pond. Make sure rocks and stones are cemented in place so they don't roll loose.

8. 

   Another idea is to use different grasses and making an ornamental grass garden. If you have space you can flatten an area and build a hillside patio, a gazebo or set in a piece of sculpture.

9. 

   Although hillsides offer some challenges in irrigation, instability and erosion issues, with a well designed landscape planned, hills not only offer great usable space, but hold the design right up in front of you where it can be admired more easily than on flat land. Use your imagination. Look at parks and public gardens. Research printed material. There are a wealth of ways you can turn your hillside into a wonderful landscape; a major asset to your property!

Resources

• Landscape design blog
• Design steps in a landscape
• Build a dry riverbed
• Design a landscape plan
• Gates & Croft Horticultural Design