Jamie was hounding me about the dirt hill so I ordered some Icee Blue Juniper (a Monrovia patent, the grower). I selected it because it's pretty much the ideal ground cover for this kind of thing. According to the grower it is good for:
- Erosion control (primary)
- Evergreen
- Does not require heavy watering
- Deer resistant
- Cold hardiness
- Grows only 4 in tall and up to 8 feet wide
So that is why I selected it. Price was $17 for a 1 gallon size and I got 20 of them, shipped to a nursery for pickup.
Working on this slope was hell and took most of Saturday. I also laid out the weed control fabric and that was similarly awful.
To plant, I bought some planting mix which was a rich organic mix of stuff, including poultry manure. I mixed that with some of the dug up soil and threw in some shrub fertilizer.
On Sunday I laid out the soaker hose watering system. For that I used two 100 ft kits from Miracle Grow, which was required due to both the amount of hose I would need and the number of connections I had to make. Side note, I think the soaker hose is cool. Since I will have to water this regularly until the fall, I feel like the soaker hose is a more efficient way to water, letting the water drip into and saturate the soil rather than spray a bunch of water through the air only to pool and puddle on the soil before it can actually saturate. Downside is it is kind of custom for the particular landscaping area you have, and is in fact supposed to have a layer of mulch on top of it.
The nursery guy said 90 minutes of this, at least 3 days a week, until September or so. It uses far less water per hour than a regular sprinkler due to the restrictor in the main feed.
The final step is mulch and sadly I seem to have missed all of the mulch sales, as the price is back up to over $3/bag which is too high considering I need like 40+ bags of it. My best option may be Walmart, which has the best price at $2.50. The usual sale prices earlier in the season are $2/bag.
I think bags are my best option as well because I can carry them from the truck (which I would park near my working area) to the part of the slope I want to spread the mulch. Then I'd cut open the bag and spread. Compare that to either shoveling mulch, one scoop at a time from either the truck or a place it was dumped in the driveway. The bags seem more convenient. I don't have a great plan for spreading it otherwise. Basically just start at the bottom, and as I mulch, try to walk up the slope on the mulch and not tear my weed fabric. I think this is going to suck, but it must be done.