How to Landscape a Terraced Garden

lanscape terrace

Building a terraced garden is a great way to use the seemingly unusable land on a slope. If you have a sloping backyard, it's relatively easy to landscape a series of terraces. You can use the terrace for a flower or vegetable garden. All you need are railroad ties, long metal stakes, and seeds.

Things You'll Need

• railroad ties, or other kind of barrier
• metal spikes or stakes about 2-3 feet long.

Instructions

1. 

   Dig a series of trenches along the side of the hill. This is where you will lay (and layer) the railroad ties that will serve as barriers for your terraced hillside. The figure shows the side view of a hill before and after digging terrace trenches.

2. 

   Next, lay the railroad ties in the trenches and secure them by hammering stake IN FRONT of the barrier. Depending on how steep your hill is, you may need to stack the garden terrace barriers. The stakes should be fairly long, and you should secure them about 2-4 feet apart along the side of the terrace. See the figure for details.

3. 

   The next step is to till the soil, and then fill in the gaps with more soil so that you have a nice level area to plant your garden.

4. If you are terracing a gently sloped backyard and do not have rocky soil, you can probably get away with using wooden spikes.