Getting plants to grow on a steep and rocky hillside can be a challenge. Delores Beckman from South Dakota had a creative way to solve this problem. She made pantyhose planting bags.
 To make these bags, she cut the legs from old pantyhose and filled them with a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite, compost and topsoil. After making a funnel by cutting the bottom out of a 3-pound coffee can, filling the bags was a snap (illustration A). Delores pushed the can into the leg and rolled the hose down around it. As she filled, she pulled the can up until the leg was full of soil. Then she tied a knot in the end.
 The result was a soil bag about 4 feet long and 8 inches in diameter. Delores made enough bags to cover her planned area. Then she pinned them on the hillside with bent coat hangers and cut holes through the nylon for plants (illustration B). For aesthetic reasons, she covered the planting bags with a mulch of straw. Eventually the roots grew through them and into the hillside, holding everything in place.
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