How to plant shrubs on a slope is a matter to ask if you are willing to add some greenery and to be detailed in the landscape’s beauty. Slopes can find their way into your garden naturally after heavy rain or soil erosion and by artificial landscaping.
Even though they look very interesting, planting any sort of plant can be challenging, especially when it is your first time. Fear not, as in this article, we have stated a very simple yet highly effective process of planting shrubs on a slope in your home garden, so let us get into it.
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How To Plant Shrubs On a Slope Easily?
You can plant shrubs on a slope in the garden by choosing the plant, studying the slope, gathering your tools, and straightening it. Then you should plant the shrubs, and create a berm, and after you are done, you should apply mulch.
Slopes work best with smaller plants and grasses, which provide ground cover where the height is not an issue, but it is the most common form of slope landscaping. If you want to spice up your slope gardening game, try planting shrubs on your slopes, and they will add such a nice vibrancy.
1. Choose the Plant
The best plants to plant on a slope are snow berry, Japanese yew, burning bush, fragrant sumac, English ivy, creeping juniper, and Siberian carpet cypress. These are the best plants to cover up a dingy slope where most plants cannot stand.
Any plant with a stronger grip on the ground will work best for slopes. When planting on them, make sure that you try to even out the land as much as possible. This will ensure that even in the bad weather, the plants still have some support to hold on to and this will ultimately help your landscape.
On the flip side, you must also take into consideration how there are some plants that you cannot include. This is why the worst plant for a slope will include all trees that grow very tall and do not have a strong root system. Any plant that covers up a lot of space and cannot be tamed is a bad choice for a slope.
Slopes are a hard place to plant because of their asymmetric shape. It is even harder when you choose the wrong plants, like fruit trees and shade trees. The sole reason behind them is a bad choice is that their size might become a problem in the long run for the slope, and in the case of a weather emergency, the slope might not be able to hold the trees in and may cause damage.
2. Study the Slope
One of the important and influential steps in the process of planting shrubs on a slope is studying the shape of the slope that you have knowing this, you would be aware of how you cannot plant on a rugged and open slope because it will not retain any sort of plant, fertilizer, or water in order for the plants to grow and prosper.
This is why shaping the slope is of utmost importance and requires a little skill and hard work. Now there is no hard and fast rule on shaping the slope, as all the slopes are of different sizes and shapes. The biggest issue with planting shrubs on the slope is that they often outgrow the space, which becomes a problem for the sides.
These shrubs can also sometimes get very heavy and tug on the soil, ruining the symmetry of the slope. The other issues include high exposure to the sun, wind can cause the shrubs to dehydrate and wilt quickly, and the soil and nutrients are also of bad quality on the slope because of the overexposure.
Moreover, when you have this issue in mind, you will be aware of which plants thrive there. Slope may not be the best place for you to experiment with your gardening or plants, but rather use the most common shrubs with the least girth and plant them there.
3. Gather your Tools
The tools you will need to shape the slope depend on your expertise, and you can shape it using the most common gardening tools or get heavy machinery to work. However, you will need to be very mindful of the machinery you use because a single wrong slash can mess up the whole slope.
The best way to get this done is by marking a shape around the steep slope, so you know exactly where to dig and what to miss. So soil, gravel, rocks, mulch, and husk, are all the materials that you can use to level out the slope. These materials are also associated with landscaping, so you basically straightened the slope with planting tools and tricks.
4. Straighten the Slope
The only thing that you need to remember while shaping the slope is that you need to make it as straight as you possibly could. If this means that you will need to put in some more time or extra work, be it but make sure that after you are done shaping the slope, there is a considerable and positive difference between this and the previous shape of the slope.
Ensure that the slope is away from pipes or underground sewage systems, as it will only make it harder for the slope to be planted. In addition, before you try planting shrubs on a slope that is not in your rock garden or on your property, you should take special permission from the concerned authority.
You should also keep in mind how straightening a slope requires much more than just planting. A slope can be straightened out by building a wall and then filling the difference with soil. This will even out the slope and make it perfect for planting.
5. Plant the Shrubs
The second step in the process is to plant the shrubs on the slope. You will need cuttings from a mature shrubby plant, or you can choose to grow the shrubs from seeds. The former way will take lesser time than the latter process of using seeds.
For propagation purposes, you can get cuttings from any garden store, or if you have a shrub that your heart is set on, go and inspect the plant and get cutting. Shrubs have softwood stems under the hardwood stems, making great cuttings for propagation purposes. Get the cuttings and leave them in a damp cloth, so the tips do not dry out.
Keep them this way until it is time for them to be planted in the soil on the slope. Once the slope is ready to be planted, plant the cuttings and water the area. Shrubs grow best in a moist environment, and as the slopes are already dry and dehydrated, you will need to put some extra water in.
6. Create a Berm
Creating a berm is very important when you plant on such a location and to fill the area with properly cultivated vegetation. It actually helps a lot in keeping the plants healthy, and when you have planted and watered your plants, you will need to create a berm. Without a berm, when you water the plants on a slope, the water drips down to the side and leaves the soil dry.
A berm will catch all the water, stop it from messing up the sides of the slopes, and will also keep the moisture in the soil. This is why it is of utmost importance that you build a berm after planting the p]shrubs, as then you will have a closer and real look at how the water drip off and where it can go.
7. Apply Mulch
After forming the berm, the mulch is the next great thing for you to put on the sides of the slope. The mulch will help the slope retain its shape, and in case of any heavy rainfall or wind, the mulch will help in keeping the actual slope soil in place.
It contains compost, leaves, small and soft stems, and soil, because this is what will help the shrubs that you placed to thrive and develop in such a strong manner. Slopes are very common as they can appear due to bad landscaping, heavy rain, soil erosion, or simply because of the hilly nature of the area.
While landscaping, one must do more than skip the slopes because they are also a part of the place, and leaving them exposed will negate the whole purpose of the landscaping and gardening. Therefore, slopes are heavily landscaped by plantations and shaped so that they submerge into the natural beauty of the gardens or nearby plantations.
Conclusion
As we have reached to the end of the article, now you have perfect knowledge of how to plant shrubs on a slope in your home garden, but in case something was unclear, here is a short review for you:
- You can plant shrubs on a slope in the garden or any other place by shaping the slope, planting the shrubs, creating the berm, and applying mulch.
- Slopes appear due to bad landscaping, heavy rain, soil erosion, or simply because of the hilly nature of the area.
- Straightening a slope before planting your plants is always a good idea because, in this way, you will be sure that the plants will not just slide off or break in case of anything.
- Planting and growing shrubs from a cutting by propagation takes lesser time for the shrub to grow than using seeds.
- Berm will stop the water from dripping down from the slope to the ground nearby.
Just as you know the right plants that can be cultivated in such a location, you also know the correct step that you must take, and soon you will have a landscape that is unique, vibrant and very aesthetic.
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