Need the ultimate ground cover for this hill!

Hello,
I live in north Mississippi with a steep hill I desperately need to get looking better. It is on the north side of my house, so it stays relatively shady. Currently the hillside has a mix of stuff going on....clumps of liriope, vinca minor, daylilies, and weeds. It looks horrible.
What I'm looking for is the ultimate solution for this hill. I need something that doesn't have to be mowed or trimmed back, as the hill is very steep and dangerous to climb on. I need something that will suppress the crap out of the weeds. And preferably I'd like something that doesn't get too invasive, to where it invades the yard below and becomes a nightmare for me down the road.

The two choices I have been tossing back and forth are either regular Mondo Grass....or Asiatic Jasmine.

I currently have variegated asiatic jasmine on another hill on the back side of the house. It seems to suppress weeds pretty well, though occasionally some will pop through. It does get a little brown in the winter. I just don't like how "viney" it is. But I can't help but wonder if the asiatic jasmine would be easier to keep control of than Mondo Grass.

I do think the Mondo Grass would look cool on the hill though if the blades arched down and looked like a flowing sea of green.

It needs to be able to handle drought conditions too....even though we get tons of rain in the spring, we almost always go into a lengthy dry spell starting mid-summer.

Please let me know what you think about the two options I came up with, and if I should be thinking about anything totally different.

Whatever you do, do NOT plant any kind of golden or yellow flowering sedum, as some people like to suggest. My parents put it in a flower bed and have been fighting to eradicate it from the yard for honestly 15 years now... As a kid, they would pay us to rip it out and fill trash bags with it. And it STILL spread to new areas! We've concluded that the pieces get caught in the lawnmower and then fall off in new places which root and form new patches. Basically a nightmare.

Though it can also be a bit invasive, my mother has had much success with Vinca Major (Periwinkle or Myrtle Vine) to cover steep banks thickly. It doesn't seed and it's easy to keep in check with trimming and mowing. It flowers for much of the year and is very drought resistant. There is a white variety, too. It will cover very poor quality shale-y banks, so I'm sure it would work fine in your spot.

I have myrtle in places on the hill already. My issue with myrtle is there are still a lot of weeds and grass that seem to come up through it. I’m looking to have no weeds if possible with how steep this hill is.

So MANY different liriope (mondo) each one with a diff character! #1) gold lantana back from the roots preparing to bloom. #5) vinca with liriope under it, been same place for 15 yrs, flood and drouth, #2) same as 5, liriope holding sandy ditch. Is filling in, but doesnt travel much #3)a small variegated liriope my dau swears is invasive, but doesn't spread, double or grow.#4) a third liriope, white blooms but doesnt block much or thicken, does travel a bit. Sometimes with plants there is no perfect solution.

Or, for a slightly different idea, you could carve out the bank into narrow terraces like steps reinforced with short decorative stone retaining walls and fill in the space between each level with flowers. I think that could look very nice and it wouldn't require something covering the whole ground.

This message was edited Apr 14, 2018 4:16 PM

Perhaps there are low growing junipers that might do well in your climate. They take three years to get really going.

Perhaps there are low growing junipers that might do well in your climate. They take three years to get really going.