We live atop a steep hill and while recently renovating and adding on, we took the opportunity to use the dirt to flatten out a portion of the yard. However, this leaves us with a large dirt hillside on the far side of our flat space.

The hill is roughly 100 ft. long, and maybe a 15' slope. As we encountered MANY cost overruns on the addition and renovations, we are trying to put an evergreen ground cover on the hill as cost effectively as possible. The hillside gets full sun now, but we will propbably plant some trees on it to help soil retention, so some of the sunniness will go away. For this reason, we were looking at English Ivy which appears to be the most flexible of the evergreen ground covers as far as light.

In researching options, I came across Bare Root groundcovers. I am assuming that these are small or very young plants. I'm wondering if this is a feasible option or if these tender plants are just too difficult to grow.

Let me finish by saying I have a lab and 4 kids, and most of the neighborhood ends up in our yard at some point! It will be difficult to give these plants tender loving care for long!

Has anyone used Bare Root Groundcover? Success? Advice? Thanks!