SHOP PRODUCTS
Houzz Logo Print
sandmanuva

Can I level a sloped back yard?

sandmanuva
7 years ago

I live in Charlotte, NC. The backyard of my house is sloped with a pretty significant 3-4 ft drop at the furthest point from the house. This is frustrating, since part of our property is unusable. I'm also hoping to put in a new swing-set for our 4 & 2 year old, but will have trouble finding enough level space. I'm wondering if it would be feasible/affordable to build a retaining wall near the end of the yard and use fill dirt to flatten things out. A couple considerations:

1. the two pine trees are growing right out of the slope I'd want to level. Any ideas on working around that?

2. there is a small stream about 20 feet beyond where the fence currently is. Not sure how this might affect things

3. On the other side of the stream are some townhouses. The stretch of woods provides good privacy in the summer, but we would potentially want to plant an evergreen privacy option someday, very close to the edge of the retaining wall could be.

4. I'm happy to put in some manual labor and will be excited to pull something like this off. That said, my "advanced" landscaping experience is limited to building a small firepit with gravel seating area, building a brick patio and removing smaller trees (under 15'). i don't know much about terraces or potential pitfalls of re-grading yards.

I've attached a couple pictures to the post. The current swing-set came with the house and is in really bad shape. An ideal location for a new one would be the opposite side of the yard so it could be clearly see from the house.

Any advice?





Comments (3)