Agnes Stevenson: Creating our own wonder wall to bring a neglected corner back to life

A beautiful butterfly alights on hardy geranium persicaria bistorta, just one of many willing colonisers that will spread out to cover the ground quickly in Agnes’s new earth wall

Transforming an untidy mini-wilderness into an oasis – and a new log and bin store – is all about planning ahead, says our expert Agnes Stevenson.

The slope that lies at the far end of our house is finally getting some attention. This area is next to where we park the car and store the wheelie bins, but it has lain untouched since we moved here three years ago.

In that time it has become a mini-wilderness, sprouting grasses and w eeds, laced through with wild raspberries and home to a forest of self-seeded willows and conifers. Now, however, this sloping bank is to be dug into in order to create space for a new log store and bin shelter which means that we will need to find some way of stabilising the soil on those areas where the slope is transformed into an earth wall.

Plants will do the job very nicely, knitting the soil together and preventing it from being washed away by rain. You’ve only got to see how well plants maintain sand dunes on the beach to recognise how powerful their roots can be at holding slopes in place.

My first thought was to smother the slope in ivy. Some grows here already and it would simply be a matter of adding more, but then I realised that it would be more fun to create a vertical border, a living wall of foliage that would knit together over time to form a tapestry.

The slope is 2.5m in height and stretches for 10m, so even once the bin and log stores are in place that will still leave a large area of soil, so I’m going to need a lot of plants, but fortunately I already grow much of what I need elsewhere in the garden and I can use these to get planting underway.

Hardy geranium, persicaria, and Lady’s mantle are all enthusiastic colonisers that will spread out to cover the ground quickly. Hostas will add interest with their huge leaves and astrantias will provide splashes of pink and white during the summer.

Bergenias and heucheras will create an evergreen effect and eipimediums may hang around too if the weather doesn’t get too cold. I’m also going to plant up large areas with a mix of primulas as these should grow well in the damp, heavy soil.

The hardest part of completing this section of the garden will be to eradicate the weeds. Some, like the raspberries, have become so well established that I’ve got little hope of getting rid of them in one go, but others I’m hoping will give up when smothered by so much fresh growth.

Work should get under way next month so, in the meantime, I’m rounding up every suitable seedling I can find and potting it up in readiness to create my living wall.

Lots of things, like primulas and alchemilla seed themselves into our mossy lawn and if I go over this before the grass is cut I can often find lots of young plants to dig up and grow on. And thanks to the recent damp and mild weather there should be plenty of them to discover.