Sometimes a good way to determine what is realistically possible is to combine what it legally possible with your budget and see what that looks like. Great ideas plus an inadequate budget mean that the great ideas will not happen. A great budget for work that the city/county/management district will not allow will not happen as well. But that still leaves many possibilities open to being accomplished by creative solutions. Begin with the general objectives. Plants are the best thing to hold soil on slopes, but I can't say grass would be the best plant. It must be mowed so that can be awkward. Some kind of groundcover might be better.

We kept all of our soil (sort of) from an 850 sq. foot excavation. I don't know what the regulations are in your area, but since you are from the state of Oregon--I am going to assume you have some lofty (or lefty) over-regulation going on in the state with regard to soil transfer & movement. This can cause costs to your builder or landscaper to have the soil tested and then sent to a state or local approved location for a fee. Expect delays if this is the case. Again--I'm assuming you can't get away with just dumping it at a local farm site, etc. even if you have a lot of "nowhere" in your area without your contractor risking being fined. This is pretty much like the regulations we have in our part of the state although things are a lot "looser" elsewhere in neighboring counties or states. Here's what we did. First, when the topsoil was removed from the dig there we were able to haul this smaller amount ourselves by truck loads to be used on a neighboring property where they wanted to build a berm. (Shush . . .) Also, we had a LOT of rocks (maybe as much as 20%) in our soil of various sizes. We used the larger ones to build several different rock walls and incorporated them into the naturalized landscaping. I refused to buy the $6K worth of rocks as estimated on our plan just to get news ones hauled in by a landscaper. You can't plant a bulb with out hitting the free ones we have around here! The walls were not really stacked rock walls for the most part, but natural boulder walls using the excavated larger rocks --some moved by machine others small enough to place by hand with one or two people doing the work. We worked around the sizes and shapes that nature and circumstances gave us. This also eliminated the need for concrete retaining block-type walls anywhere in the yard (so we didn't have to buy additional material. We also planned to have the pool set-up just slightly above the highest level of the grade and even just a few inches used up quite a bit of soil around the pool for the base under the pavers and what will be the surrounding planting beds. Lastly, we also had a yard that sloped quite a bit in several areas. The remaining soil was used to even the grade without affecting the good drainage slope--which would have set off more alarms for regulatory concerns! And now, it's all gone! In fact, we actually have had to buy good rich topsoil to put on top to do our landscape planting and to seed for grass. We couldn't have used our own topsoil as easily since it was better suited for a berm than for spreading with all the grass and such mixed-in after it was ripped-up for the dig. Also, we needed it gone before we had machines moving rocks around and doing the grading of the more compacted soil underneath. Check-into your own local regulations and don't assume your pool builder or landscaper will know if they don't do a lot of work in your town. This approach may not work for you or meet your esthetic preference, but maybe some of the ideas will apply. Good luck with your planning.

As some one who has done a fair bit of landscaping, I reckon that a fall of one foot in eight metres (roughly one in thirty) is not at all bad if you are planning garden beds. I would leave it. It is a good fall for runoff in times of rain. If you are wanting level areas for sitting outside around a table then with a fall like yours, you could lay some sleepers across the first half and terrace the nearest area. Dividing it into two can also add a bit of interest to the garden area especially if you leave the natural fall in the other section. You do not have to lay the sleepers at right angles to the fence but if the fall is say, diagonal, consider exploiting that and see how it might look. Lay it out using you garden hose to mark the areas and compare the alternatives. Avoid just putting garden beds around the edges as it can look rather uninteresting. You could break it up with curves etc. There are lots of magazines to inspire you. But the fall in your backyard could definitely be taken advantage of, rather than wasting the energy on creating a flat space.

Thanks for the comments. It’s a small yard so I was hoping to get more useable space but I don’t want to spend too much and it sounds like this would be expensive,