Gardening as therapy.

If you want immediate coverage for summer and fall:

Plant morning glories. They'll bloom in 5 weeks from planting time, and reach 10 - 15 feet by fall.

Grape vines are also good spreads for summer, but they will grow wildly and prolifically. Polygonum aubertii is a beautiful fast growing vine but invasive in some states. It will also cover the pile by the end of summer.

You can get away with cheap, quick summer coverage by planting vining squash or watermelon.

For late fall and winter coverage:

You can plant evergreen bushes around the pile, picking up unsold evergreens at big box stores or garden centers. You can build a fence (including a cheap one from branches or scrap material) and interplant evergreens that are fairly quick growers.

But evergreens generally aren't fast growers, so you may still need something inbetween shrubs for the spring, summer and fall periods. That's when the fast growers like morning glories come in, and they'll lend beautiful color to the pile as well.

There are other vines such as clematis, corkscrew vine, Dutchman's pipe vine if you want to get fancy, or, and this might appeal to you more: hops. You can harvest the hops to make your own beer. And the hops vines are lovely and attractive.

i probably shouldnt have asked because dirt cheap was going to win out anyway . i bought 15 ea 10 - 15 " tall plants from ebay for 8 bucks shipping included . VINCA MINOR, PERIWINKLE EVERGREEN GROUND COVER .
supposed to be green year round and tolerant of shady conditions .
gotta admit , thats pretty dirt cheap ..
i might even try some on a hillside that i have no intention of ever mowing ..

Sharyn, good suggestion! I especially like the creeping fig, small, clinging to each surface, it hides less undergrowth to hide large rats.

Cap, ivy works too. Good luck with this!!

i want the stuff covered , no plans to salvage any of it . ill check out the spreading juniper . i like the sound of " cheap " .
thanks

Thanks to Garden Artist and the people on this thread, I know what a wattle fence is now! If I ever need one.

Do you want something to cover it or to shield it? There would be different choices.

Is this stuff just landfill, do you ever have plans to re use some of it??
Spreading junipers are tough as nails and evergreen, there are some that hug the ground and others that are taller. Usually pretty cheap too.

i have a question for you experiences gardeners . what kind of creeping ground cover can i plant to hide my masonry scrap over the hillside operation ? its legal fill but in the winter when the trees are barren it looks like a trash dump from the distance of the road . thanks in advance ..

Pleasant Valley Iris Farm has a great selection of irises in all different colors, breaded and rebloomers.

Your lilies sound beaitful Glad!!!

The homes nearby are selling fast, in one day! Even homes without any landscaping. Housing shortage.

Nope, my house is on the market still. Though people are looking at it. Houses are moving, just not mine yet.

Hoping all went well with your old house, Glad. Did you sell it, or rent it out in that short amount of time before you moved on to a new life?
Hope things are better for you now.

At my house that I moved from I had some beautiful very, very deep purple irises. So deep purple they look almost black. So gorgeous! I had many different varieties of lilies, lots of stella de oros, and then others that I order through different people from an online iris society website. I was amazed at how many different varieties there are! And I never missed an iris show. Must see if there is one around here somewhere. Getting life back one half step at a time.

Awesome Tacy!!!! You find a solution for the slugs. They and snails and earwigs are big issues here in my area. Usually come out at night during cool temps .

I ordered more irises today from Brecks. Spring hills Nursery was already sold out...can you believe that and it is only April. I guess if I want to get the purple color I want, I will have to order a year or more in advance. Who knew so many want purple irises.

Horray, tacy!

What I thought was daffodils that weren't blooming I now think may be some sort of lily. Shall be interesting.

i got one garden planted in tomatoes yesterday and bottled my cantaloupe wine today . the wine is pretty palatable now . in 3 - 4 months it'll be really good .
i decided the 32 gallon plastic wine barrel is as much of a kitchen / dining room / food preparation item as any other in the house so i washed it , inverted it and left it in the nook where it operates . it dont take a genius to figure out what its purpose is .

LOL I was actually going to suggest putting a few toad houses in your garden!
How fine is the mesh in your fence? If there is food to be found the toads will find a way in on their own I think, but adding a couple and providing a shelter for them couldn't hurt, but if they don't like it there they won't hang around.

No No No, don't put the pine mulch in your veggie garden!!!
1 slug utopia, lots of nooks and crannies to hide in,you would think holding in moisture would be a good thing but not if you have lots of slugs.
2 fresh wood chips are not going to be good for your plants, trust me I know
3 know your soil PH before you add in a lot of acidic pine needles and bark

Tacy, I just cringe when I learn about Consumers Power doing something like cutting down beautiful pines. It's an example in part of having planted trees in areas that are too close to power lines, or the reverse - power lines too close to beautiful trees. But, Consumers...well, 'nuff said about them. Edison is even worse with its tree cutting contractor which I hope has gone out of business but probably is still lurking waiting for trees to slash up.

At any rate, I think the mulch might work if the chunks are sharp enough. If they're weathered, they might have lost that sharpness though.

You might also be aware that gardeners don't agree on whether or not mulch depletes soil of nitrogen. One year I had some trees cut down around spring (I think) and gradually spread the mulch over the garden, until I was forced to spread it all quickly because code enforcement decided it was "blight."

Leaves of daylilies, irises, other perennials and I believe (if I recall correctly) even some weeds, turned yellow, a sign of nitrogen depletion. So I began raking all the mulch off again. I don't even recall what I did with it - maybe piled it on top of some weeds.

You could try some of the mulch on top of the massive piles (wow, I'm envious of all your space!) as it would have been exposed and be less likely to deplete nitrogen, but I'd watch the surrounding plants carefully.

The gardeners I know generally use beer to get rid of slugs, but as I recall I think there were some other methods that involved use of sharp objects as well. Let me search my gardening forum and see what I can find.

Tacy, don't use landscape fabric. Over the years it deteriorates and has to be picked up and disposed of manually. Imagine how plastic would look after being beaten about by the wind. That's what landscape fabric can deteriorate to.

Snails have soft underbellies so anything that scratches or causes them discomfort can be a deterrent. But I've used landscape stone, which is easier to work with than gravel, and it gets mixed in with the soil if you turn it to plant, or you have to pull all the gravel/stone away to turn the soil. And weeds definitely grow through it.

After gardening for about 60 years, I don't use anything but biodegradable substances - leaves, dead plants, etc. Nothing artificial except the bricks and patio stones goes into my garden.

This is definitely one of the cases for using Miller High Life or Coors Light, or even 3.2 beer instead of the good stuff! LOL!

I would rather sit in the yard, enjoy looking at thengarden while enjoying my beer. I won't be aharing mine with the alugs!

Tacy if you put the beer in a bowl you may find me in your garden.... hee hee

Tacy, where are you seeing the slugs? I have found that they really weren't much of a problem in the vegetable garden (except on leafy greens), probably because tilling the soil exposes them to predators. As Glad says, perennials like strawberries or ornamental flower borders (they can really destroy hostas) are where they did the most damage for me.

Slugs, ugh, worse than snails because they are gross! I used to collect the babies to feed to our pet turtles lol!
Keep good air circulation around your plans. Thin your plants like lettuces so that they are not a dense patch but rather individual plants. Avoid anything that gives them a place to hide, any kind of mulch will just make them happy.
While they wouldn't like the stones I think they would be able to hide under the fabric.
They will be most active early in the morning and on drizzly days, so if you want to go organic you can pick them off and drop them into a bucket of soapy salty water.
People put out beer traps for them to drown in, but I would rather drink the beer. I have heard of surrounding plants with sharp sand will discourage them.
I have found the only thing that really works is commercial slug bait, it is safe for pets and wildlife so no worried there.

Tacy, are the slimey things slugs? Do you have strawberries? They love those. But they like beer so much that they will drown themselves in it. Put a small plate of beer in the garden to drown the slugs. I have never tried it, as I never had slugs. I have heard it is quite effective in attracting the slugs then drowning them.

This cactus avatar bloomed today in my garden. Like I said, I didn't plant it!
A neighbor gave the plant to me when they moved. Six blooms!
My garden is blessed!