With the best will in the world, this job is not doable by a lone person, never mind a lone woman. It is outwith both your knowledge and ability. Never mind muscle power and budget. Sorry to seem harsh but you cannot tamper with slopes unless you know what you are doing. Slopes eat up money and if tackled wrongly can lead to serious drainage and subsistence problems. I seriously advise you to save up the money and get it done professionally.
'Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement' - Helen Keller
It is doable by a lone person. It's just a matter of time and energy. I would caution that once you disturb a bank like that, dirt and all will tend to fall, and it gets messy quickly. Many plants, trees etc, do well to hold it all together and stop it falling. I have not cracked our slope, but diagonals can take a little sting out of a climb and provide interesting perspectives. Our thin garden looks much bigger when walking down steps that are diagonal across the garden.
But diagonal steps may might be harder to construct.
What are the drains? Where does the pipe work go?
Your neighbours' garden/s may provide some inspiration.
I'd plant out the back with some hedging to begin.
I can't quite work out how big it is from the photo.
It's an interesting site with plenty of potential.
What I’ve learned of gardening these last two years:
One thing/area at a time You can’t do it all in a day Its never finished
And something I’ve always try to live by:
Keep it simple
I’m a 40 something Ironman triathlete, just finished a marathon on Sunday and was training again yesterday.
I took one look at your photo and immediately thought “No chance.” And that’s before I saw that you’re a one woman army. Unless you can whistle those ferrets and dogs into helping of course!
If you’re going to take this on, I would advise that you
1. start small 2. be patient 3. only level a small 3ft square bed at the top 4. chuck some summer bulbs in there 5. stand back and reappraise the garden plan now you have an idea of how hard that was
You can get to a better garden, but you’ll need manageable bite-sized chunks and a bucket of patience. If you enjoy each chunk, you’ll keep the momentum over the months and your friends might want to join in once they see the delight on your face.
I think rasingirl has the right approach, work with the site if you can rather than making a huge effort to turn it into something it’s not. And no rotovating, you’ll just make it worse.
First question is what do you want the garden for? As that should give a direction to what you want to do with it. Because if what you want is somewhere to sit out, something more interesting to look at and a place for your dogs to play then that’s suggests one solution. But if you want to become a self sufficient fruit & veg gardener then it’s a different matter! And how much maintenance do you want to do?
Do the fences follow the ground level on your neighbour’s side of them too? As that’s important as don’t want to make the fence unstable. I would avoid changing levels close to the fences and think more about creating a central area that’s level, close’ish to the house, and grading the soil back to original levels. Plants are good at surviving, so I’d also think about using robust plants that you can plant in pockets that you dig & improve, rather than preparing huge planting beds. There are lots of interesting, robust, low growing shrubs that can hold soil together on a slope. And with three dogs you'll have a job keeping a lawn in shape, so I wouldn’t bother and keep it fairly natural.
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“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I seriously advise you to save up the money and get it done professionally.
But diagonal steps may might be harder to construct.
What are the drains? Where does the pipe work go?
Your neighbours' garden/s may provide some inspiration.
I'd plant out the back with some hedging to begin.
I can't quite work out how big it is from the photo.
It's an interesting site with plenty of potential.
What I’ve learned of gardening these last two years:
One thing/area at a time
You can’t do it all in a day
Its never finished
And something I’ve always try to live by:
Keep it simple
I’m a 40 something Ironman triathlete, just finished a marathon on Sunday and was training again yesterday.
I took one look at your photo and immediately thought “No chance.” And that’s before I saw that you’re a one woman army. Unless you can whistle those ferrets and dogs into helping of course!
If you’re going to take this on, I would advise that you
1. start small
2. be patient
3. only level a small 3ft square bed at the top
4. chuck some summer bulbs in there
5. stand back and reappraise the garden plan now you have an idea of how hard that was
You can get to a better garden, but you’ll need manageable bite-sized chunks and a bucket of patience. If you enjoy each chunk, you’ll keep the momentum over the months and your friends might want to join in once they see the delight on your face.
Ive been wondering about your project since you posted, for some reason it has stuck in my mind - how is it progressing so far?
First question is what do you want the garden for? As that should give a direction to what you want to do with it. Because if what you want is somewhere to sit out, something more interesting to look at and a place for your dogs to play then that’s suggests one solution. But if you want to become a self sufficient fruit & veg gardener then it’s a different matter! And how much maintenance do you want to do?
Do the fences follow the ground level on your neighbour’s side of them too? As that’s important as don’t want to make the fence unstable. I would avoid changing levels close to the fences and think more about creating a central area that’s level, close’ish to the house, and grading the soil back to original levels. Plants are good at surviving, so I’d also think about using robust plants that you can plant in pockets that you dig & improve, rather than preparing huge planting beds. There are lots of interesting, robust, low growing shrubs that can hold soil together on a slope. And with three dogs you'll have a job keeping a lawn in shape, so I wouldn’t bother and keep it fairly natural.