New garden

[DJKC]

Ive just rotivated my garden so the soil is now really soft. Problem is my garden slopes from right to left so i need to step it. Whats the easiest way of leveling 2 differents hieghts ? if any, so i can lay new turf.

Thanks for your answers and ideas!!

[vehelpfulguy]

Well it depends on the amount of slope.

You could use wooden railway sleepers. You should be able to buy these second hand somehwere. They have already been treated so will never rot, and are fairly easy to lay. They are not cheap though.

Another option is vertical wooden poles. These are round, like the trunk of a small tree, and you fix them side by side in a line, but you would need to make sure they are sunk a fair way in the ground. 

Another choice is a wall, but if it is going to hold back a large amount of earth then it needs to be fairly stong.

I did a search in Google for "Slopes in gardens"  (you could search for other variations) and found a number of sites. This one looked interesting

http://www.gardenaesthetics.com/dilemmas.html

  

[jake-the-peg]

Watch it with sleepers - some are treated with creosote which a) can kill plants and b) is I think classified as hazadous now.

Probably best going for untreated ones 

[DJKC]

Thanks for the info, i thought sleepers would look good. The question really is how to move the earth easily? By the way its not a big slope, but, would look better stepped.

[woofgang]

we have used railway sleepers as terracing. Not only do they not seem to affect the plants, things actually seed in ther cracks which looks quite pretty and rural. The drawback is that in the summer, they sweat a bit of tar which can get sticky

[jake-the-peg]

Hire a mini-digger.

If you can get them in there ( they can be as little as 70cm wide but most are a meter or so.) They are absolutely fabulous for moving earth and great fun! - take a little practice but I excavated a bank-side to make a parking space over a 3 day weekend and levelled about 40 square meters too.

Best fun you can have with your clothes on!