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The marriage of living plants and cold steel ranks among the most enjoyable elements of practicing landscape design in the San Francisco Bay Area.

SCENARIO: Single-family residence on steep 2-acre property in Los Altos Hills, California. The lovely and level back patio was marred by the slope immediately above it: ugly bare dirt, too steep for traditional planting, and eroding at the base of the house's diagonal support beams. The situation called for a bold stroke of design creativity.

QUESTION: How to turn this liability -- a barren and degraded slope -- into a lush and attractive asset?

ANSWER: Save the slope with a green wall of perforated steel plates, coconut coir, and local native plants.