Leveling Garden Advice

[Daks]

A little off topic maybe, but I plan on leveling my garden this summer. The garden currently runs right to left down horizontaly with a difference of about 3 ft.

 

Any ideas on the most cost effective way of getting this level, the garden is very clay based and drainage is poor, out of season it's a mud bath.

 

Cheers in advance.

[spanj]

I'm thinking of doing this too

[fruity]

I done this to my garden last year, not sayingi ts correct way ? But i used a 4 ton machine to dig land drain all through the garden to create good drainage, used the dug out soil to build the low part up, added new top soil and re- turfed works a treat but alot of hard work and fair bit of money

[Brown Sauce]

We did this to our garden about 2 years ago, as it was sloping away from the house with a 3ft drop in level. Put in a retaining cement block wall about 18m long, it then took near enough 30 tonnes of rubble/bricks etc of back fill. Waited a good month then 10 tonnes of soil, another month wait and around 5 tonnes to bring back to level.

 

As mentioned, it was a heap load of work, but worth having done.

[Kes]

I suggest its worth starting by laying drainage and drainage medium at the low end of the garden with any retaining structure at that end being made of embedded and concreted tree trunks/4" min fence posts.

Then get a small rubber tracked kubota and shift the high end to the low end creating the level you want as you go. This will involve pre -stripping the topsoil and replacing it after subsoil shifting.

It all depends on how big the garden is but do the initial drainage etc and the muck-shift should be done in a couple of weekend hires. Seems like about £600 quids worth unless the garden is really big !

Not had to do this on the current house just totally renovate the structure.

Good luck

[bakerboy]

Pond and raised beds?

 

Decking with storage underneath

[kent]

Lay drainage now, then cover with broken brick or other cheap hard core. Retaining wall then new top soil and then turf (perhaps the old stuff if you can keep it alive). Beware of water building your side of retainer and ruining the wall through penetration over time or putting the retainer too close to a boundary. Watch out for compressing the ground or crushing drainage if you use any heavy plant, though on a fair size plot its hard not to use plant

[DaveyTed]

Pond and raised beds?

 

Decking with storage underneath

 

I went down the decking route. The noise at night was unbelievable from the rats breeding underneath!

[al4x]

I had a fairly similar issue with this last house I've done, high outside ground level and sloping but the soil was better. I basically went the hard route and dug it out and skipped away a couple of 8cu skips and laid the lot to patio, then put sleepers up as a retaining wall. under the patio it was dug out well and hardcored so that acts as a soak away, paving has permeable joints and the sleepers have a foot of pea shingle under them to help drain from one to the other. we are on chalk though so it is different but any excess were it to happen goes to the main soakaway. These are the best before and after pics i have to hand the sleepers have worked really well just bolted to posts set about 4ft down, cheap and effective and you don't get issues with holding water back as you would with a wall or have the cost of building it as retaining walls are far from cheap.

 

 

[Daks]

Thanks for all the advice gents, I'll post my project in Summer, some good ideas here.

 

Please feel free to post project pictures, would love to see them.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Daks