I am trying to figure out the best way to prepare an area where I would like to plant a row of Arborvitae trees as a privacy fence. The area is virtually all shale in an area approximately 60' long by maybe 10' wide max. There is very little, if any, dirt over the top of the shale. Also, the area slopes up. From the edge of the driveway to about 5' in, the slope is very slight, maybe 10-15 degrees. Then, it gets steeper, to about a 30-45 degree slope to the top. I am thinking and have had others agree that I can just create a berme and then plant the trees. But I don't want to just get a truckload of soil up here and plant and have it fail.

Here is a link to some pics...

http://picasaweb.google.com/joepb70/ArborvitaeArea?authkey=cnCJmM4_2U8