Photos of slopes please?
Slow-worm
Posts: 740
Following Ian's post, can I please see some of your garden slopes? I've got a weird one in my front lawn, which I'd like to plant up as it's a pain to mow, but as my place is rented, I don't want to change it too much - I'd like to get an idea of what you lot have done.
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What some people call a slope isn't what I'd call one. I remember someone being concerned about a trampoline in the garden as there was a 'big slope'. When they posted a photo, it was flatter than any garden I've ever had - including this one!
I don't have any pix of my previous garden round the corner from this one, but a couple of simple terraces from the back door did the job. We had a deck out from the house, then steps down - about 3 feet or so. The slope ran both ways, so we did revetment walls with timber and a decking finish so that it all blended. These are the only digital pix I have - taken soon after we planted it up, although I altered it several times - as you do
Last garden was all on a slope, and was already established, but the pond and surrounding planting was cut into that slope. I amended the pond edging so that we could walk right along it from the house to the other end. Mainly grass, as it was a large plot and next to a farm, and you couldn't easily have had anything else, especially with the amount of rabbits that ate everything you planted. Mostly tough shrubs
Small terraces are the best way, or a winding path, as @pansyface describes, but it depends on size and what else affects it too.
We have an odd, very abrupt slope in the back garden lawn. Actually as we live on a hill, the whole garden slopes but this bit is funny. We had to give up trying to mow it as too slippery and dangerous, so I re-labelled it as my 'rough patch'. I planted stipa tenuissima, bulbs and creeping plants in amongst the old grass to try to stabilise it and below it, on a purple slate square (which we think was a base for a shed), we have our Lutyens bench, which draws the eye away from what is behind it. The patch in question is about 2 m x 1.5 m and drops about 1 metre. I meant to photo it this afternoon but rain stopped play.
Some tall grasses might look good planted at the bottom of your dip @Slow-worm.
My slope isn't straight, I'll get a photo when it's in daylight. It's on a curve like a round-edged right angle, the slope is about 5/6ft of about 40⁰. The road runs down a hill, and we're almost at the bottom of the road. The completely mental way it's built means that our place sort of sits in a dip, so the garden slopes sharply down, and the water pipe and manhole cover are at the bottom, so I have to be aware of that too.