Question
We live on hill that goes down to a man made lake. The developers cut a level "path" that's 4-8" wide to lay the sewer lines along the edge of the lake. They weren't worried about how neat it was and undercut whatever vegetation was growing on the hill, mostly wild mountain laurel, but also a couple of trees are left. There left a shelf on top overhanging this undercut part and it's really ugly. The path part is bumpy and difficult to walk on. I can get some rocks from just neating things up and build a dry wall with them, but won't have enough as the bank they created is from 6-8' high. I did build a 12-15' long wall using the native rocks in the shorter area, about 3' high, but really don't know what to do with the rest of it. I have thought about a combination of stone and some kind of plants, but don't know what to use. I could knock down part of the bank and make it less steep, I guess, but that would sacrifice some of the mountain laurels and I have had no luck with transplanting them as their roots are just about impossible to trace. Also, when we dig in that hill, we just mine for rocks, so the roots are all entangled in them. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer
With shallow bedrock, any digging you do will take years (if at all) to recover, as you have discovered with the developer's carelessly scared excavation.

Neatening things up is a good idea, and transplanting the laurels soulds like it is not going to work. 6 to 8 feet of scarred slope is a lot to deal with by "rounding the edges off" of the denuded cut bank.  

There are products that will "varnish" away a bit of the fresh-cut look, but they won't solve the long-term problems. If the damage is really fresh, you have no idea yet about which sections may be susceptible to erosion due to rainy weather and run-off heading to the lake (another problem besides the aesthetics).

I'm a big cheer-leader for rock walls and you may have to import a ton or two so that you can finish off the mess the developer left you with.  I wouldn抰 hesitate to go upwards of 4 to 6 feet with rock walls, if that抯 what you need.  Then backfill with gravel & topsoil.  Any plantings that drape over the top are the least of your concern; and there are lots to choose from - vines, grasses, and trees.

Here is a picture of some modestly significant rock walls in my area (under construction & after the fact):
http://www.stjv.net/html/success.html
http://www.mindygriffith.com/Images/Reno_Rock_Wall.jpg

I didn't want to scare you with the 20' tall versions! We use big rocks and it takes at least two people to place, or better yet, use a grappler & backhoe (like the pictures show).

Maybe your problem is not as significant as I'm reading from your question ("mining reclamation" verses just covering over a "bad haircut"), so maybe you scale the size of the walls down & you could knock down some of the slope in-between the existing laurels, so it doesn't look so contrived & man-made.  Hard to tell from how I'm reading your description.

Just in case, here are pictures of much smaller walls: http://www.smithworks-reno.com/Page%20Four.htm

~Marc