I’ve mentioned a couple of times that our house is on the side of a hill with a lot of trees around. And although there are lots of advantages to such a location there are also some disadvantages. Two of the disadvantages are erosion and places where grass won’t grow. In our case the two places often coincide, especially in the back and on the uphill side of the yard.
But three or four years ago we hit upon a solution to some of our problems. The lot below ours is vacant and we noticed a lot of periwinkle growing in it. So we transplanted some into one of our problem areas.
It’s been slow, but the picture above shows how things looked earlier this week. The periwinkle has spread to cover the area where the grass wouldn’t grow and to at least cover an area of erosion.
The pretty blue flowers of the periwinkle are a sign that spring has arrived. And since it’s spreading I have a little less lawn to mow. And believe me, at my age every little bit of hillside yard that doesn’t need to be mowed is an advantage!
We have several small areas of periwinkle that we are encouraging to spread. In the meantime we enjoy the beauty they provide.
The picture at the right is a close up of the flowers of our periwinkle.









