Raising the level of the lawn/beds

Hi I have built a summer house with stones around it. My garden slopes from the top where the grass is level with the base of the summer house to the bottom where the lawn is like 6-8 inches or so lower than the base. How would I go about raising the level of the grass and plant beds to the same height. I was hoping to source railways sleepers to lay along the bottom of the garden (there are already some around the summer house) and up the side fence too where the soil beds would meet the fence (as the neighbours garden will be a bit lower than mine). Also lay wooden panels around the beds at the bottom and side. Do I need to buy in some subsoil and proper soil to build up the level on top of the existing grass (which is patchy at best) and then buy rolled turf to lay out on top and more soil to build up the beds? Just looking for the cheapest way possible to do it myself really. Is it likely I can source old railway sleepers from a station maybe? Not sure what sort of volume of subsoil, soil or amount of grass to get hold of. The patch of grass needing replaced will be about 2.5m wide (from summer house stones to bed sideways) and 5.5m long from bottom bed to parallel with front of summer house. There is a photo below. Feel free to ask any questions. Would like to get this done this summer so the grass can take before winter.

 

Hi there ... and welcome!

So ... maybe I am just a gardening wimp, but what you are proposing does sound like a huge undertaking to me. Is there a reason the sloping is a problem? Drainage issues? Young children toddling about?

Bear in mind railway sleepers can rot down quite quickly.

I'm sure there are people here who have dealt successfully with slopes and hopefully they will be along with advice on dos and don'ts.

 

Hi thanks.

The summer house 6 x 5 m was built on a levelled base so a lot of the bottom of the garden was dug out as there was a 12 inch slope top to bottom. I put in a couple feet wide French drain all the way round the base taken up to the same level as the top of the concrete base all the way round. The grass left as you can see has been worn away and my fence collapsed so all the plants in the bedding at bottom and right side were destroyed. So I feel it would look better to raise the bottom of the garden up to the level of the top given the summer house is already sitting at that level. From what I can see I need to do the following:

- Remove the patchy grass on the right hand side up to about level with front of summer house.
- Fill in rough sub soil more at the bottom and some up towards the top and stampp down by foot
- Top off with maybe a couple inches of proper soil and stamp down by foot
- Lay rolled out lawn on top of that so the lawn is same level
- Lay railways sleepers around the bottom and right side of the garden against the fence (mainly to stop the soil going through fence into next doors gardens as theirs are lower to mine)
- Lay some sort of border timber to separate borders from the lawn at the bottom and right side.
- Fill the borders with some sub soil and soil til they come up to similar level as the grass
- Worry about plants at that point!

Looking to do this on a budget and not worried that much how nice it all looks!

 

You might have been better off putting deep concrete gravel boards under the bottom of the fence but too late now (they work best with the concrete fence posts - you slot the gravel boards in first and then the wooden panels above).
Now though, a low wall of concrete blocks or some such thing would probably last longer than wood. Whatever you choose, you'd need to build it first before filling in with soil. You're talking about what is effectively a low retaining wall, so it needs to be strong enough to withstand the pressure of the weight of soil inside (when wet). If I was doing that I'd make sure the gap to the fence was wide enough to get a broom into sideways, because all kinds of detritus will collect in there. Weeds will probably grow too.

If you have borders on the same level as the lawn you don't need timber or anything else to separate them unless that's a look you want. With a lawn edging of any kind, you still need to trim the edges of the lawn where the grass blades grow horizontally over the edging where the mower can't get them. If the edging is higher than the lawn, or if you have raised beds with lawn right up to the base, you won't even be able to get the mower up to the edge so trimming is still needed.

I think I might be inclined to do it the other way, and lower the lawn at the edge of the building, or maybe split the difference, but if your topsoil isn't very deep you'd need to remove it, level the subsoil and then put the topsoil back.

 

Interesting thanks!

Yeah I might leave the lawn with a slope away to the bottom but then I guess I need some sort of wooden border to separate the french drain next to the summer house down to the lawn itself, similar to what you can see in the photo was already there for the borders which must have been slightly raised already? If doing that can keep those wooden edges to the borders and as you say perhaps look at concrete backing blocks around where the fence meets the border.

In doing this all I would need to do is place wooden bordering along the side of the french drain and the borders, then dig up the existing grass say to the front of the summer house then rake the soil underneath into a steady decline to the bottom. Then roll out turf with maybe some bags of new soil first. Then look at blocking the back of the borders and adding more soil to raise them up a bit perhaps.

My only concern with lowering rather than raising the lawn was the a lot of water will come from the drains from the summer house and it always pooled at the bottom of the garden so by lowering I am creating a natural pond almost for water to gather. If I raised it all then it might drain away better?