“Gardens with different levels are always more interesting than flat ones”, I reminded myself, staring down at a new garden that would be more suitable as a ski slope than a British garden. But mostly we don’t have any option other than making the best of what we have, and what we have seems to be coming along in more unusual packages as housing gets crowbarred into more marginal areas of land.
Slopes! How do you deal with them? Well, the steeper they are the more you have to concentrate your resources regardless of whether they slope away or towards the house. Decide where the main sitting area is going to be, for entertaining, catching the evening sun, kids play area, BBQ, whatever you use it for, try to create as large a single level space as you can. A single garden divided into 5 narrow terraces, for instance, is actually 5 small gardens because you can’t use them all at the same time. Building retaining walls or raised decks can be expensive if your not careful but so is wasting half the ground your sitting on if you can’t get more than a couple of steps out of the back door.