Stone steps and retaining walls cut into a sloping lot

Retaining walls do two jobs at once: they hold the slope, and they turn a bank nobody can use into level ground somebody can.

Designed for the load, not the look

Wall height, batter, the depth of the base course and the drainage behind the wall are all engineering questions before they are design questions. Ours are worked out by an NC State engineering graduate, which is why we will sometimes quote two lower walls where somebody else has quoted one tall one.

Drainage behind the wall

Water pressure is what pushes a wall over. Clean stone backfill and a drain behind the courses gives it somewhere to go, so the wall is holding soil rather than holding back a reservoir. Get that wrong and the wall bulges within a few seasons, whatever it is built from.

Steps that suit the walk

Steps get set out at a rise people can climb without thinking about it, and wide enough to pass on. Cut into the terraces they double as a route through the planting rather than a ladder bolted onto the side of the garden.

Then it gets planted

Terraced beds get soil, shrubs, edging and fresh mulch, so the slope is holding itself with roots as well as with block. That is the part that stops the bank washing back down onto the lawn every time it rains hard.