A steep hill

[hisgal2]

Does anyone have any ideas for what I can plant on my front lawn? My house is 83 years old and all of the plantings are a cottage style type of plantings.......lots of wild flowers and such. I have a few stepping stones in the grass in front of my porch and then there is a steep hill that goes down to the curb. It drops about 18 inches per foot. It is covered in some sort of ivy, but I'm not sure exactly what kind. I have steps going up the hill on the right side. The ivy is over grown and I don't know if I can just prune it or what to do with it. It just looks kind of yucky. Any advice? :confused:

[Mel-icious]

If it looks anything like this:

http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/img/hehe1a.jpg

You will have to pull it out, it won't be an easy task, but if you leave it, the ivy will take over and kill your other plants. Is this what you have?

[hisgal2]

Half of it looks like that.....That half is on one side of the steps which is under a very old pine tree (like 90 feet tall). I know that ivy is a booger, but I don't really mind it being there since it is all a nice and even height. On the other side of the steps, the ivy doesn't look like the one in the picture. I've heard that english ivy will grow in a different shape if it is in full sunlight, but I can't find any pictures of that. This ivy is on the other side of the steps where it does get full sunlight after about noon (it takes that long for the sun to get up over the mountain, so noon is pretty consistant). Its shape is that of a person's eye. It doesn't really have a defined height like the ivy on the other side of the steps. It has "stems" that stick up out of the main body and it just looks horrible. Do you think it would look better if I just trimmed it all down? And how exactly would you do that? Is there something else that I can plant there? Or maybe level out a couple of "steps" and plant (but then would the house still have it's country feel???) :huh: <--expirementing with smileys

[Mel-icious]

The problem with English ivy, is it is a bitch to get rid of. I had to battle it here. It grew into my stone walls, it grew up my tree and choked the life out of it, it grew into my window pains, I had ivy in my windows, if you let it, it will take over everything. NOt to mention it ruined the foundation of another stone wall and the paint on our house.

You can trim it, and believe me you can't kill it. If trimming is what you want do it. But if you try and plant flowers around it and don't remove it or keep it trimmed, it will choke out your plants. The only way to remove it completely is by the roots, and you have to get all of them. I do have some left, I like the look of it ontop of a wall, but i have to keep it trimmed. To trim it get some clippers like you would use on a bush to shape it and hack away. Its root system is really strong.

[hisgal2]

I'm aware of the problems with ivy. I'm not worried about that side. It has a clean look and there is nothing that it will hurt on that side. Do you know what the other kind is? Is it just the english ivy with a different look to it?? There are some wild flowers and such on the top of that side of the hill and the ivy....or whatever it is.... hasn't bothered them at all (of course, we just bought the house in July) Its just grown around it a bit. This stuff doesn't grow overly fast and doesn't seem to be as violent as the english ivy. Any ideas?