Garden Design Hacks to Turn Troublesome Tilts Into Terrific Terraces

Many people hang up their gardening gloves at this time of year, but we mentioned a few weeks ago, it’s the perfect time to plan ahead structurally if you’re wanting to make more substantial changes to your garden. Significant changes to the layout or terrain puts your garden out of action while that takes place, so it makes sense to do that at a time when it’s not going to interrupt the barbecues and family footy.

This brings us nicely onto this week’s topic – terraces. Most gardens utilise a patio area of some sort as this adds a practical area in which dining and socialising can take place more easily regardless of the weather. Once you have a flat surface to play with, the functional boxes can get ticked more easily such as adding covered or shaded areas, dining furniture or seating.

It’s a common sight to see a few token slabs laid into a garden as a starting point, but this often looks like an afterthought or forlorn. With a bit of know-how, you can turn your terrace from a travesty into a triumph…

Playing With the Lay of the Land

If your garden isn’t flat, it’s tempting to think this is a disadvantage, but the reality is it’s a great opportunity. Watching this video will show you just how creative we can get with gardens with well-defined slopes. As we shared, adding height to your garden wherever you can is a fantastic way of adding interest, so a slope is an opportunity to do this, not a burden.

Instead of seeing your garden as un-flat, see it as interesting! If you look through our gallery, you’ll see that many of our gardens are not remotely flat – they have multiple layers and our favourite gardens are created across many layers. This is a much larger job if you’re starting with a flat canvas. If your garden is sloped, look again at the natural angles in it and how a few splices and slices into its terrain here and there could create extremely usable and interesting pockets.

Size Matters

Take a look at the footprint of your garden, as well as what you need from it. If you have plenty of space available to you, even if it isn’t flat, and you know that you socialise regularly with larger groups of people for instance, you’ll know that a small spotlight terrace isn’t going to make the cut.

Think about the difference it would make to how you use the garden if it was more enticing and functional before you make your changes. What would your perfect garden look like? What can you introduce that moves your garden towards this? Would you use the garden more as a family if it became easier to eat outside, or if a firepit or hot tub were to be introduced?

When you know what you need, you’ll then know how much space you’ll need for that. It’s amazing how many aspects you can add to your garden which tick multiple boxes once you have your wish list more clearly defined. And surprisingly, the size is rarely what inhibits this from being achieved.

Centre Stage

Instead of being a drab area that you plonk a few seats onto, a well thought out terrace can be a fantastic stage for your garden. Extending a flat terraced area into a slope creates a more dramatic step, which you can then make a feature of by playing with the shape of it. Introducing curves or ornate slabs can make a gorgeous feature of your patios and terraces.

If you don’t want just one terrace, creating a few mini flat sections set into a slope can look stunning too. Staggering a slope into multiple flat layers would be a huge task if the starting point was flat so this is where slopes can really bring a garden to life. If you start by looking at the practical needs of the garden, you can then map out how that can be incorporated into the topography of the space and set mini-stages into it which can be used in so many ways.

Is your sloped garden a challenge you can no longer put up with? Our design team can help ease the strain. Call them today on 0116 210 0760.