Transforming a sloping garden

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When Andrea Green relocated from the West Midlands to North Wales, her new house offered her everything she ever wanted — apart from the garden. The sloping nature of the garden made it an impractical space to relax in — so she knew she needed to make some major DIY changes.

‘When I first moved into this house in 2003, the garden had a severe slope, which sloped down towards the house. Mowing the lawn had become a real issue, I kept finding myself sliding down the bank.

The garden itself was just a lawn, there were no plants to be seen and the space felt like it had absolutely no structure to it. I am a keen gardener and have quite good DIY skills, so I knew I could come up with a new garden design, which could make much more of the space.

I knew from the start, that I would have to work with the slope rather than remove it or dig it out, so I drew a very rough sketch of what I had planned out in my head. As I only have my own income to fall back on, I also spent a long time working out my exact budget.

I decided the best garden design for this space would be to install railway sleepers to help create more defined areas. I started by ringing every supplier of railway sleepers within the Flintshire area to find the best quote. I then enlisted the help of local garden designer, Carmel Landscapes, and he advised me that he could start work in four weeks.

Overall, 22 sleepers were needed to terrace the area and after two days of digging out the space in the rain, the dramatic slope started to disappear. I had already agreed with the garden designer, that I would remove all the excess turf and rubble and all I needed him to do was to make sure the sleepers were securely put into place. Once the sleepers were in place, I was thrilled with the results.

It was March by the time all the groundworks were complete, so now all the planting was up to me! I would arrive home from work, cook tea and then would garden until 10pm or until I could no longer see what I was doing.

In total, I removed 16 bags of excess turf and dug in nine new bags of organic matter/soil improver. My son Joe and I would transport the bags from my car onto an old skateboard and bring them into the back of the house, as you could probably guess the front garden is also sloped!

After months of hard labour, the space was now finally ready for planting. I have a love for Japanese gardens and had three small bonsai trees, which I wanted to incorporate into the space and I also love azaleas and acers. The middle part of the space was made up of one large terraced bed, so I knew I had a large space to fill with planting. I also planted acer plamatum, cornitus, agapanthus, iris, sambucus black lace and crocosmia for late flowering. My friend Anne, gave me perennials and I purchased 10 small box trees from a local market for £15 and planted them alongside the steps.

For the bottom terrace, I had to install weed membrane followed by two tonnes of slate. My cousin visited me for a weekend and we spent three hours bringing the slate from the front of the house to the back all in buckets. Finally, I visited a local reclamation yard for sleeping stones for along the bottom terrace.

For an entire year, I didn’t take a break from gardening! After spending so much time dedicated to gardening, I find it very difficult when nothing needs doing. So my next project will be to replace the top lawn with a Japanese garden — wish me luck!

This feature was Project of the Month in September 2011