Garden Design For A Sloping Site

Posted 13th September 2023

In Garden Design, Landscaping, Uncategorised

Dan Richards talks us through the garden design for a sloping site in Wembdon, Somerset and explains how he met the homeowners needs for practicality and beauty in their front garden.

The rolling hills of Somerset never fail to delight the eye, but for a garden designer they are both a blessing and a curse. Creating a garden on a slope opens up all sorts of opportunities for interesting features. It also involves numerous calculations for retaining walls, steps, drainage and groundworks.

In this blog, I’ll be showing talking you through one garden design for a sloping site in Wembdon.

About The Garden

The front garden I’m about to introduce you to belongs to an attractive family home in Wembdon, a Somerset village. The name Wembdon translates from the Saxon for “Hill Of The Hunter” and if you ever visit this village you’ll understand why – it’s definitely not flat.

This particular home has a sloping front garden where the driveway is considerably lower than the front door. The previous owners had done their best to populate the sloping garden with low maintenance plants. But the existing retaining wall and steps were tired, crumbling and unattractive. It was desperately in need of an update.

What To Consider In A Garden Design For A Sloping Site

In any garden design, my first port of call is to discover how the family wants to use their garden. In a rear garden, one would normally think about creating flat terraces for patios or lawns. And then finding a way for people to travel between those terraces. But this is a front garden, its two main functions are allowing safe and easy access to the house and creating kerb appeal.

When thinking about my garden design for this sloping site I needed to consider two things. Firstly – how will people get from the driveway to the front entrance whilst carrying shopping bags or wheeling a pushchair? And secondly, how can I make sure that soil doesn’t slide down the slope every time it rains?

The clients had also expressed a desire for privacy and wanted to minimise road noise.

The Solution

Creating a garden design for a sloping site means putting a lot of thought into usability and safety.

This garden was definitely too steep for a ramp. The maximum gradient for a wheelchair ramp is 1:12. Even though my clients are not wheelchair users, I’m a stickler for adhering to regulations. As a member of the APL, it’s important to me that every garden is built responsibly. So, with a sloping path out of the question, I explored the possibility for steps.

Steps in a garden need to be evenly spaced with a sensible depth of tread and a manageable riser height. That way, proprioception is easy for our bodies and a person can negotiate a flight of stairs without having to look at their feet. That’s even more important if someone is likely to be carrying bags or boxes whilst negotiating the slope.

For a set of steps to go from the drive directly to the door of this house, they would need to be quite steep and their construction would involve considerable (expensive!) ground works. I decided to follow the contours of the garden and design a gently curving set of steps which lead to a narrow terrace at the front of the house.

Producing the design in 3D helped my client’s understand the concept before they agreed that work could begin.

Styling This Sloping Garden

With a design for the constructed elements of the garden finalised, it was time to think about styling. Which materials would be most suitable? How could I make the front garden look attractive?

Kerb appeal is important for any property. Not only does it add financial value to a home, it brings a sense of satisfaction and pride to the people living in it. The front garden represents a transition from the outside world to your safe space. It needs to be welcoming, relaxing, a source of happiness.

Choosing hard landscaping materials that blend with the colour and style of the property create a sense of continuity. It’s important that ‘home’ starts at the front gate. The wrong landscaping materials could make the garden feel completely separate to the home rather than part of it.

For this project, the clients decided upon natural stone for the steps and terrace with rendered retaining walls in a co-ordinated colour. The stone and render blend beautifully with the painted panel at the front of the home.

The Soft Landscaping

Soft landscaping refers to plants and mulch. Basically, anything that’s not concreted into the garden. To my mind, soft landscaping is crucial in any garden design for a sloping site and this plot is no exception.

We started by removing the overgrown leylandii hedge along the border of the garden. It would’ve been damaged by construction works anyway. However, this only served to expose the fence panels, which are not particularly attractive. A new laurel hedge does a great job of absorbing road noise, providing privacy and offering a home for wildlife.

Between the hedge and the steps we’ve planted a selection of shade loving evergreens. Then we’ve mulched the soil really well with wood chips. Climbing the steps feels like walking through a woodland glade.

To the left of the steps, at the top of the retaining wall, is a selection of low maintenance grasses mulched with aggregate. Once mature, they will be at head height for anyone on the steps accentuating the feeling of privacy and creating an element of surprise. The property will be almost hidden by vegetation until you get to the top of the stairs.