By Jamiejones
United Kingdom
hi, i am moving into a house in the next couple of months and i was just thinking in advance about what i would like done to my back garden, the house is at a bottom of a mountain and as you can imagine my back garden is on a pretty steep slope, im just wonder whats the best/ cheapest way of leveling it out,
i will add a photo to give you an idea ..
- 19 Apr, 2016
Answers
Yes, definitely. Leave the slope and work with it. Really good opportunity there.
19 Apr, 2016
basically have 3 flat levels and steps up the middle maybe ? the garden is actually over 2x as long as you see in that photo, behind that back will is more land but has been left to grow over, i wouldn't know where to start with that,
19 Apr, 2016
Judging from the stonework in the side wall the front (lower) section looks to have a fierce slope on it - I might be inclined to level that out a bit, maybe making two levels out of one but it will need a fair amount of digging and you would need to be sure of the foundations for the walls (probably a job for professionals unless you are confident in designing and building retaining walls).
I would certainly add a path though, with steps to improve access to the farther reaches of the garden. With that backdrop, and depending on what you want to do with the garden, you could probably get a nice route using fallen tree branches/logs to create the front of the step (think of paths in woodland glades at the big open gardens)
19 Apr, 2016
But let your imagination run first - look at as many pictures of split level gardens you can find, because a path does not have to (and probably should not) run straight up the middle of a long garden, it increases the perceived 'narrowness' of something - there's no reason why the step up to the next level can't be off to one side, or offset from the centre, and the paths or walkways meandering...
The Google earth pic shows as much again at the back as there is already in three levels nearer the front, big enough to build another house! I'd focus on the nearer to the house parts first, I think, unless you've got an army of help available.
the first thing to decide is precisely what uses you want to put the garden to - practical things like hanging out washing, children playing (sandpits? climbing equipment), barbecuing, sunbathing, shade provision, growing veggies, a dog run if you've got dogs, a body of water (pond, lake, swimming pool even in that size) that sort of thing. If you've got the money, it'd be worth consulting a good garden designer, and completing it over a period of time.
19 Apr, 2016
i know that i would love a sitting area at the top, mainly cause i think that's where the sun will be most of the day, maybe a decking area, im not in the position to be spending all that money on decking and getting a firm in to do any of this at the moment, i just think getting everything as level as possible would be best, everything is more manageable then, but obviously not leveling the whole garden, leveling it out in three sections. it has so much potential but a shame its on a such a steep hill.
19 Apr, 2016
Levelling out three, maybe four sections, is a good idea - but sometimes its best to live in a house for a year anyway to make final decisions about what you put where in the garden. You get to see how the sun travels and which areas get it, where frost forms and where it doesn't, if any of it gets waterlogged, whether its horribly windy or not, and also anything that pops up where you didn't think anything was growing, so concentrating on the area nearest the house is probably the way to go, then over time, creating a longer term plan for the rest of it, to be completed when time and your pocket will allow.
19 Apr, 2016
in that 2nd section its been left to overgrow with all sorts, i have been told to get a goat, apparently they will eat anything in sight, is that true ?
19 Apr, 2016
Well they do seem to eat anything, including my cardigan when I was a child at the zoo... whether they'd like to eat all the overgrown foliage I can't say though, and there may other drawbacks to keeping a goat - noise, for one thing! And they do like to climb up rocky hillsides, you might find its gone high up to look for food it likes...
There's another way round that though - you need some large rolls of thick black plastic. You put that over the area you want to stop growing, anchor it down tightly all round the edges to exclude air, light and rain, and after a minimum of a year (preferably two) everything under it should be dead.
19 Apr, 2016
i will have to give it a try, with all this work i probably wont be alive much longer to enjoy it and im only 25..
19 Apr, 2016
25?! You've got years and years ahead of you, and you're young, fit and strong. You'll have to pace yourself at first to reduce injury risk, but think how fit you'll be after all that gardening... and all those years to enjoy the results. Put it this way, I'd swap places with you in a heartbeat - but the swap wouldn't be a great one for you;-))
The one piece of advice I'll reiterate is this - take your time, don't rush to get something done, research and look at gardens and designs, make a plan of sorts for most of the area over the next year or two, because otherwise, things you do in a rush, you might find yourself not liking, living with it for some years, then redoing it.
19 Apr, 2016
Another bit of advice: if you decide on decking whoever installs it should treat it with a non slip product. Decking is lethal when wet.
19 Apr, 2016
Whatever you do to change the topography of your property make sure that it will not pose any water runoff problems or any other unseen ones to your neighbors. As a matter of fact, check with your local codes. What is being proposed here may not even be allowed. Now you might say that your neighbors have already done what your are contemplating. That's fine but be sure before you move in that what they have done has had no repercussions to your property in a heavy rain.
19 Apr, 2016
The possibilities are endless, what would I do, well this is just my choice but food for thought for you, I love the cottage garden feel along with a woodland garden, the bottom half of the garden would be the woodland area, with a rustic decking area and a rustic looking summer house in the corner, trees of birch, rowen,elder, hawthorn etc would grow up over time and give you that secret garden effect, a winding path will lead you to the table and chair on the decking area in front of the summer house where you can sit and sip wine and beer and escape from the crazy world and feel at peace, the winding path can be made using recycled bricks or a great idea would be to let the grass grow long and cut a snaking swathe through it with the mower scatter wild flower seeds, divide the secret woodland area with some rustic poles and a archway, then the area from the door to the archway will be a garden, with lawn and shrubs and for the kids to play, but the secret garden will always entice them and kids being kids they will be in there making dens and in so doing making memories and having such a good time, al the kids in the neighbourhood will be round, this is what I did, and my grandchildren just love my woodland garden.
19 Apr, 2016
Just being nosey - are those the hills up behind Port Talbot?
If so you'll need to chose your trees and shrubs carefully because of the wind.
19 Apr, 2016
i will keep that in mind!!
yes it is, at the 2nd half of the garden iv been told there is apple and pear trees, probable keep them,
20 Apr, 2016
Hello Jamie. I'm in Wales (Cwmbran) and our back garden is terraced too, and we successfully relandscaped it to make the plot look twice as wide as it actually is. The concrete path down the middle of each terrace, with grass on either side, is long gone! Mind you, it wasn't cheap. Worth it, but not cheap.
My advice is to live in the house for at least a year before you decide what to do with the terraces. And if you decide to deck some of the garden, you'll need to apply for planning permission if any part of the deck is likely to be more than 30cms (1 foot) off the ground. And as you're on a slope, it obviously will be. The Planning Inspectorate comes down like a ton of bricks on anyone who breaks the rules and invades the neighbours' privacy as a result, so don't be tempted.
Wishing you lots of luck with the move. :)
20 Apr, 2016
Well actually, if you mean can you make it all one level, I wouldn't - a bit of stepping up or terracing is a good idea in these situations. It also adds interest to a garden - from the photo, some of that's been done as a way of dealing with the lie of the land, but it could be done in a much more attractive way. What's there appears to be three separate areas of grass with very little else. So think about those three areas as separate 'rooms', perhaps having paving or stones of some sort in one area (maybe nearest the house), low retaining walls for each step up and maybe adding trellis sections on top with climbers, to separate the rooms a bit more, an area with lawn surrounded by paving, so its inset, any shape you like, and another area that could be a play area for children, or just plants, like a shrubbery, or a fernery, or somewhere to grow vegetables, or pick a winding path design to carry you right through to the other end, there are lots of possibilities. I'd take that on like a shot, what an exciting prospect...
19 Apr, 2016