Zone?

You could do figs trees. No maintenance, no bees and thick enough foliage to block out light for the weeds. Full sun, marginal decomposed limesound on a steep hill pretty much sounds like a fig's natural habitat.

We are in the same boat, but we have hundreds of gophers, and every tree we plant MUST be inside a gopher basket. We have citrus and figs ready to go in, but between the rocks and the gopher slaying, it takes one day to plant one tree.

I never thought that the trees would shade and block the weeds. That is a good point!

I bought myself a sturdy hiking staff for support going down that slippery decomposed granite hillside, and it really helps!

Check out the fig forum. There are many fig varieties that you never heard of that are delicious. They are nothing like what you buy commercially!

Suzi