designing-a-sloping-garden

5 Useful Tips for Designing a Sloping Garden

Proper planning and a good design are able to transform a slope into the perfect garden for your home. Many people find it hard to design such a garden, and we concur it can be a tricky task if you don’t know what to do.

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If you do it right you get the perfect garden for your home, you do it wrong, you end up with so many challenges. Let us look at the top tips when designing gardens on slopes.

Tip #1: Create Flat Areas

Flat Areas

The best approach to designing a garden on flat slopes is to have terraces complete with retaining walls so that you get flat areas. The flat areas can be used as functional spaces for planting the crops.

The slope usually offers different heights that you can create the rooms, making them ideal for a wide range of crops at the different levels.

You can enclose the flat areas or sink them to create the necessary atmosphere for the crops. However, make sure you have enough space to access the different features of the garden.

Tip #2: Make the Areas Usable

design the flat areas

When you design the flat areas, your aim is to make sure that they can be used for planting. These areas should be different depending on the level changes.

Conventionally, the retaining walls shouldn’t be more than 1 meter high. However, you can check with the local authorities to know the permissible garden wall height so that you don’t contravene what has been set.

Avoid very high retaining walls, as they can contravene the rules of the local laws. Many people think that creating a large retaining wall to put the garden on one level.

Landscaping experts, NS Landscapes claims this can be very overbearing and makes some areas of the garden hard to access, and the design might infringe on the privacy of neighbors. Instead, split your garden into smaller, shallow levels that are easier to manage.

Tip #3: Make Use of the Right Materials

concrete blocks

You can make the garden attractive by choosing the right kind of material to make the retaining walls. The most common material to use is concrete blocks. Concrete blocks are robust and cheap and give you a long-lasting, stable wall.

You can also opt for stone, bricks or stainless steel. You can incorporate pebble mosaic sheets and slate cladding to add textural contrast to the other materials. For a more natural look, you can opt for timber.

The choice of materials depends on the style of the garden, your budget and what your wall is supposed to hold. Some materials support higher retaining walls and large volumes of soil compared to others.

Tip #4: Know Where to Throw the Soil

Soil

You need to know where to take the extra soil. You end up with a large pile of soil after excavation. You can use the soil to make the terraces, but you will still end up with some more soil that you need to get rid of.

The soil needs to be removed from the site using loaders and skips, which can be expensive. Make sure you factor this into your budget.

Tip #5: Planning is Essential

construct the garden

You need to come up with plans for the entire construction project. The plan ought to include a drawing and construction detail. These make it easy for you to construct the garden. The plan should include where to put the rainwater tank, the steps and other features.

Water is scarce, and you need to have an alternative when it comes to supplying the garden with water. Take time to get the right size and kind of rainwater tank for the purpose.

You also need to know the amount of rainfall you receive in the area in order to get the best tank for the garden. For this task, learn how rainfall is measured and apply the methods to the project.

You also need to know how best you can access the various levels of the garden. Steps are the conventional way of getting from a level to another.

When it comes to designing your sloping garden, you need some tact and expertise. With the right tools and a few tips, your garden will soon be the talk of the neighborhood.

About the Author Laura Bennett

Hello, I’m Laura Bennett. I love nature especially when it comes to flowers and different kinds of plants. I started a very small garden behind my house and I named it Humid Garden. So, I created this blog to provide aspiring and inspiring thoughts about gardening for gardeners and anyone who has the intention of keeping a garden.

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