OHs Front Garden

Looking at your plans is the tree going? I would have kept that for some height interest also birds will come in to the garden if they have a tree to perch in which makes them feel its safe.
I have now seen your blog and can see that you are keeping the tree.

This looks similar to our front garden, long & narrow and on a slope. How steep are the steps? It looks like a fair drop to the road but might just be the angle of the picture. If you're wanting to level the path out into a slope could you perhaps leave the lawn at its current height and just slope the path, creating a steep bank or reinforcing the side somehow so that the tree can stay as is? Does the path need to be wider? I know you have three wheelie bins (we have the same so I know how you feel!) but you presumably don't wheel them all at the same time so it would just need to be one width?

Hi Vinisroz. I'm pretty certain the garden is wider than it looks in this photo and certainly not as steep. The drop down to the road is about 2 shallow(ish) steps (if I remember rightly - don't tend to use the front door much as I park round the back of the house). The plan is to cut the path into the soil a little more so its more of a gentle slope and hopefully keeping the tree. The problem we have is the tree roots are lifting a couple of the slabs (where we would want to lower the ground). I'm hoping we can work around it somehow, but not sure yet. At the moment the steps are cut into the earth with the sides re-inforced by brick. We will have some extra brick when we take down the low wall round the connifers by the house, so we should have the same style brick to extend the retaining wall. As to path width, yes we're only looking for a width just over the width of a wheelie bin. At the moment its slightly narrower.