On Monday, 16 July 2012 17:24:31 UTC+1, chrisjpotts wrote:
Hello

We moved three years ago to the North Cheshire area and included in our new garden is an area which has been left wild. It grew nothing but Himalayan Balsam up to ten feet high. We are in the process of taming this area, which includes a ditch with one south facing side very steep and the other side relatively shallow sloped. The steep side is patchedly covered in ivy with a few Foxgloves after the balsam has been removed, with bare areas which are obviouly going to erode. We would like to plant something on this bank, firstly to retain the soil, and secondly to provide some colour and/or foliage interest. The soil is light sandy loam.

Thanks for any advice,

Chris

If it's reliably moist and has a reasonable humus content you could consider things like candelabra and other primulas, meconopsis, rogersias, great woodrush, sedges like Carex pendula, I'd let some of the foxgloves live, hostas,rheums,Leucojum 'Gravetyegiant',astilbes,aruncus.................. ...etc
This looks like the beginning of a fairly wild (informal) area if you like that sort of thing.

Rod