Hello- I'm new to this site but I'm hoping this is the appropriate area to seek help!
I have a beautiful (mostly) landscaped yard, thanks to the previous owner who had a professional come in. The only downside is that in the backyard, the nice flat grassy area leads to a wide slope that runs back and up to the fenceline. It is approximately 100ft long (along the back fence), the rise is about 12ft (at the highest part) and the run is about 20ft. It is also steeper on one side than the other. I would guess at the steepest it's about 45 degrees. So far, my husband and I have done nothing with the area. In the summer grows grass, weeds, etc, which we keep cut low. We thought about just covering the area (at least temporarily) with a wildflower seed and just seeing what came up, but I think that the weeds would start growing first and overpower them. I've used Roundup in the area several times but it's such a large area that I just can't kill everything with my hand sprayer! Ideally, we would love to have a landscaper come out and help us terrace the area; we want to put some steps in and just make it a "natural" flower garden, but we are very limited with our finances at this point and are looking for alternatives to continuing the trend of weeds and grasses year after year. Are we doomed to this??? I'm afraid that I'll need to rent large equipment or something to rid myself of the grasses/sticks/weeds before I can do anything. Am I right??? Any thoughts, suggestions, whatever you have are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

you have weeds and brush now? if so, i would probably start by burning it off. i personally think that burning is the easiest way to control most woody vegetation. (dont light a match but learn how to do a controlled burn - take a workshop and/or volunteer at a local nature center..)

after i cleared the area, i would plant a mixture of native grasses and wildflowers. what particular type of grasses and flowers depends upon the soil, light and water conditions that exist there.

starting a wildflower meadow is not going to be any less weedy than getting grass to grow there. and areas that were already a weed bed are harder to get established. although a wildflowers once established will be easier to maintain than turf grass because they will only need to be mowed or burned once a year. the hard part is getting something established.

there are many resources with descriptions of how to get a prairie started...

I have an idea that I think would look gorgeous, lots of small terraces up the hill, some stairs leading to the top on one side, etc... but I know that is going to cost more than I can spend right now.

I've had wildflowers in a home before, but the area was much smaller, not on an incline, and it wasn't an issue to remove the weeds because it could be done manually quite easily. The flowers were beautiful and easy to maintain which was why I was thinking it might be a good idea to try again.

Unfortunately in my area, I can not burn the weeds away. If I lived outside the city limits I could.

Thanks for providing the link. I'll check out the information!

you could smother with newspapers and cardboard, mulch heavily and then cover the mulch with a erosion fiber blanket tacked in place to hold the mulch on the slope. let that set for one growing season and then plant right into mulch and the blanket. it may be a rather large area for this method but you could break it up and do it one third at a time.

kill it with roundup or some other herbicide 3 times next year then throw ur seed on in the fall.

remember that wash will happen so maybe after its dead, and u throw ur seeds on a damp (but not heavy) rainly fall day and stamp it down like a Bison would (kids are good for that).

i would also try and burn off the duff pre herbicide...

froggy

Any other plant suggestions for a wildflower garden would be appreciated. The hill is very steep and difficult to walk on so the lower the maintenance the better.