Slope / Hillside garden

[Rojak]

Have just moved and garden is huge but on a slope. And am a gardening newbie!

I've been looking online and on Pinterest for inspiration but can never work out American zones.

I have a north facing slop to fill and want to try and get the bottom bit first - thinking host as, ferns, lily of the valley and I bought 2 agapanthus bulbs - would this work?

This bit gets sun in the morning but stays in shade in the afternoon. Feels quite dry but when I dig in, it feels quite heavy - clay?

If you have a similar garden, I would love to see some pictures or if you can post links to similar gardens on slops in the UK - that would help too.

Thanks

How steep is your slope?

I think the thing is to work out your structure first - and this is independent of plants so you don't need to worry about hardiness zones. How do you get up or down the garden, and how do you ensure that you can maintain it with as much ease as possible? This is where Pinterest comes in. To be honest, landscaping a very, very steep slope is a really difficult thing to do well - it may be worth talking to a garden designer.

Then, once you know how you are going to manage the gradient, you can think about planting! It sounds as though your bottom bed might be east-facing, since you get morning sun and on clay (does the soil form a ball if you roll it between your fingers)? In which case, hostas, lily of the valley and ferns should be quite happy - but agapanthus definitely not. They like to be baked in full sun!

Not sure how steep the slope is but the road we are on is on a 20% incline.

I had a gardener in to mow the grass and am thinking of getting one of those manual roller grass cutter things just to keep on top of the weeds and dandelions.

I think a chat with a landscape gardener is probably a good idea (once funds permit!!)

Thank-you for the tip on agapanthus!

Oh I meant to say the slope which I'm planting to plant on has no lawn but a variety of shrubs and a big bald patch where it had been overgrown, weedy and now cleared.

This is where I was planning hostas etc.

That's not terrible at all as far as slopes go, but is probably just steep enough to make it difficult to work on - so perhaps worth thinking about some kind of gentle terracing for parts of it, with slightly steeper drops inbetween.

I had a similar slope. I sunk the end part of it (this last quarter) by about 3 feet, and built a retaining wall. I moved the earth up to level out the slope in the main part of the garden so I had a flat area and then a more gentle slope, again retained by walls (though these are hidden right at the sides, so you look out and you think it's just always been that way).