When I discovered lasagna gardening (on another forum on GardenWeb), I was just coming to grips with recurring bouts of tendonitis (sorry for the pun; DH says I think and dream in puns!) We had moved to Georgia, and the first time I attempted to plant a rosebush, I broke my pickax. Enter lasagna gardening! Yes, lasagna gardening is work, but of the kind I can tolerate better. I can add bags of leaves; using my garden cart, these aren't too heavy. We got some horse manure, but I got DH to help me there. Long story short: the GA gardens were quite successful (although I had some need-to-get-a-life neighbors who raised their uncreative eyebrows at the audacity of someone who would plant SUNFLOWERS in her front yard, and TOMATOES in among her perennials!) :0)

Now, fast forward to upstate NY (we "came home" last summer). My front yard is pretty level, except for the portion right up next to the street; this is a slight downward slope. That has been more difficult for me. I put down cardboard and watered it. I added newspapers, 5 gal. buckets at-a-time of coffee grounds, partially finished compost. I'm thinking that I just didn't get enough materials on there before I tried to plant. I put in some perennials, but they haven't done so well. The plants seemed to get a little yellow/brown, and haven't really taken off as they did the 1st time I did LG.

Also, I'm getting a lot of run-off because of the slope. I would like us to build a stacked-stone wall there, but that is probably cost-prohibitive to us right now. On another LG thread on this forum, someone mentioned using bales of hay at the front of the slope, but I don't really want to use that in my very-visible front garden.

Does anyone have feedback on how to keep the run-off to a minimum, and whether I need to just take a loss on the perennials I started, and make it deeper for next year?

Thanks in advance,

Mountainsong