As you can see from the attached picture, my front yard is a huge slope and is, as you can imagine, a real treat to mow. We are wanting to plant some sort of ground cover on about the top 1/3 and accent with other plants, but we have no idea how to shape the bed or what plants to use. It gets morning to mid-afternoon sun. Those are burning bushes that are planted in front of the house. At the time we didn't know that they lost their leaves, so you can imagine how great our house looked last winter. Those do not have to stay.

Any ideas or pictures of similar projects that you've undertaken would be VERY much appreciated! (We're going to aerate and seed our lawn, so please overlook that!)

Well, I have many different ideas. I dream of being able to landscape with a hill like that. I find slopes that angle down and towards the viewer present such a vast array of opportunities for the landscaper and gardener.

Budget would be my first point of concern. Working on a hillside can get expensive. Becuase any terracing or grading is a project in an of itself.

But if it were my yard.... I would start off with about 3 small rock terraces. I would NOT run a straigh line across the yard and make a short wall (IE what a typical terrace invokes in most peoples mind). I would do a small semi circle wall say about a 5 radius in near proximity to where the steps level out and go near the garage. I would terrace out a small area and us a punch accent tree/shrub with small ground cover.

I would probably go with a smaller serpenting wall near the top. about half way down I would try and do the most difficult part of the project and cut in a few small medium/ large boulders for a rock outcropping (particullarly effective fromthe Middle TN plateu east). Finally at the bottom I would do another small stone wall. If I were real adventurous would probably add a small pond / water fall at the rock out cropping. Since I would be more interested in the moving water than standing water, I would go cheap, such as getting a couple 55 gallon drums and burying them or a Water Trough from TSC (Tractor Supl company) to catch the water, using a big pump to push it up the hill and have a high flow rate.

All of this work would be trying on the hills side. Take some time. Probably require some professional assistance / advice depending on your involvement level etc....

Naturallly I will answer any questions you might have. Of course you have a plethera of planting choices nad I have just as many ideas, but it depends on your tastes and interests. Well so does the rock work.

We met with a landscape designer but decided to install everything ourselves (in stages) because he was so expensive! Needless to say, we haven't done anything yet but plan to within the next couple of months. Here's what we're going to do:
-Plant two Emerald Green Arborvitae where the vinyl siding meets the brick and toward the right side of the house.
-Move the existing Burning Bushes in between the two Arborvitae.
-Plant Otto Luyken Laurels in front of the Arborvitae and Burning Bushes.
-In the vinyl siding section, plant some Skip Laurel.
-Put the existing holly bushes in front of the Skip Laurels.
-Down the left side of the yard, plant some Firepower Nandinas.
-Beside the Nandinas, plant some Vinca.
-Beside the existing Azalea, plant a Japanese Maple that is circled by Liriope.
-Finally, plant a big, sweeping bed of English Ivy that extends about 10 feet from the front line of shrubs.

I'm sure it's difficult to imagine what this would look like, but I hope it helps!