A little while back, I posted that I wanted to tear up the periwinkle, honeysuckle, and ivy that are on my hills and put in terraces. Well, I started saving money for this a couple of months ago and it looks like its going to happen this spring. So, here are my questions. I'm hoping enough people see this and know answers for me. There are some things that I just need advice on...like what to plant and such. I will be going out today to take pictures of the area and will post them on my webshots later on. I'll let you know when they are posted. Here are my questions.

#1~ Because the house is an old house and was originally a 1 room cottage, I will need to make a wavey wall instead of one that is a straight line. How many waves do you think I should make? Should the be short waves or long waves?

#2~ I will be getting field stone from my inlaws as they are building an addition onto their house and have dug many many stones out. Should I use cement to keep the stones where I want them or can I just pile them up to make the wall?? We do get alot of rain in the spring.

#3~ Should I make the wall out of cinderblock first and then just put the feild stone on the outside of it to camoflage the cinder?

#4~ Should I do 2 or 3 terraces??

#5~ I want to put in different plants that will bloom at different times of the year. There are alot of wild flowers planted around our house, so they will need to kind of match them. I am planning on going to a local green house for some and ordering some from catelogs. Anyone have any ideas as to what would look good there. They will need to be something that is pretty easy, as we are trying to get pregnant again and I won't be able to put alot of time into weeding and staying out in the summer heat. Also, we will be moving asap, so this is more of a curb appeal thing than anything, so I don't want to put in more $$ than I need to. It would be totally different if we were planning on staying more than 2 more years.

So, up for a challenge??

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Yeah, those dry lock blocks are soooo nice! But they aren't the right style for my house and they are expensive...about $2 per block. The hill is about 5 feet tall...I can stand on the curb and just see over the top of it and I'm 5'6", so I'm guessing 5 feet tall. I'm experimenting with photobucket...so lemme post a general pic of the front so you can see until I get it all straightened out with photobucket or webshots...

nevermind....it was freakin' huge!!! someone should PM me and tell me how not to let that happen!! hang on....I'm working on webshots now...

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jenn, i would use 3 terraces, gently waving walls... just my thought!

Well, I'm a huge fan of curves, but personally, I think your house is such a classical form, and so symmetrical, that it kind of cries out for symmetry in the wall. Also keep in mind that curves=more rocks, which=more lifting, and also take up more linear feet, which= more digging. (You have to dig back a way from the front of the wall to make a level base, and even further back if you're installing drainage.)

I was also gonna ask, how are you going to end the wall? Anyway, here's what I would do, but that's just MO, which is worth its weight in feathers...


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Here is what I was thinking of. Its an aerial view.



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AHA! I started that last post then had to put the baby down, then came back to finish the post, so just saw your diagram.
That looks nice!!! Can't wait to see it when you get started!

PS- I have a program on my 'puter called Sierra Land Designer, which is moderately user-friendly and I don't think was too expensive, and you can plan out your whole landscape design and look at it in 3D, and walk through it, and it has tons of plants and outdoor structures that you can plug in, and really VISUALIZE what you're going to do. It's a few years old, so I dunno if they still make it, but it's something for you to think about.

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I would also take the bottom 2 or 3 feet, since you don't have a sidewalk, and put in crushed rock path with stepping stones, or stones with some scotch moss which fills in really nicely if you can grow it there.

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Oooh, that's a nice idea. I bet that would look really good, Mel!

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Yes, Geegee, just the front. Everything else is fairly flat. As far as on the right side...I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Do you think it would look weird if just the main front was terraced and not the right?? I put in a little shade garden behind the pine tree and those roots were just awful!! I don't mind the ivy so much because the whole thing is full and looks ok...not slotchy like the main hill is.

The door is off by a couple of feet.....it drives me nuts!!!! I am just a tad OCD, I'm sure!

Melcon6~ I will look at the Sierra Landscaper thingie later tonight or tomorrow when I have time. Today has been soooo hectic. I was planning on leaving a couple of feet at the curb, like you suggested. The nieghborhood kids usually walk right there on their way to the bus stop. I kind of wanted to put something there so that they couldn't because I have rope lighting on the sides of our walkway and steps that we use as regular lighting and they are constantly dragging their feet across the ropes and moving it out of place....which ruins the little lightbulbs and drive me nuts....here again...OCD. The stepping stones and crushed rock path is what I had figured I would do as the step up the terraces. I should take a picture of the brick path that is on the right side of our house....do you think the stepping stones and brick would look ok together??

Hi LaurieAnn~ Its nice to meet you. I'm glad you found the forun...its full of great people with alot of knowledge.....well...most of them. This thread is a bit of a continuation of one that I ran a little while back. At the time, I was trying to figure out what to do with this hill in the front. It is somewhat of a steep hill. I had toyed around with the idea of doing a rock garden, as you had suggested, but we get alot of heavy, heavy rain here in the spring and sometimes in the summer (this has been a VERY rainy year for us as we just had an entire week of rain......again!). I am afraid that things would wash down the hill before they had a chance to establish themselves. I did look at your links....the first three are for AOL members and subscribers only, so I couldn't look at them (we have a cable modem and don't use AOL), but the last 2 went through and I loved looking at the pictures. I was thinking of putting some fun little things in the terraces...like unexpected little things. Do you have any ideas?? You seem to have a creative personality.

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Jenn, sorry about the Sunset links. I never noticed it was available to AOL members. LOL!

As far as adding whimsy, your imagination is the limit.

You could put a few potted plants amongst your ground planted ones to add variety to height and texture. Your 'pots' can be almost anything that are planted; for example, an interesting watering can, an old boot, a pail possibly 'dumped over' with your plants 'spilling' out.

Garden art can be as formal as a sculpture or as simple as an interesting shaped or colored rock or branch/driftwood. Just have fun with your garden.

For my tiered garden area, I'm thinking of planting a white/gray-leaved ground cover that will cascade down the tiers to a pool of "blue" blooms and/or leaves at the bottom. If I plant a combination of bulbs, perennials, and annuals, I should be able to keep the look almost year round.

So, today I decided to revisit this thread. Spring is coming and will be here before I know it! I have a massive pile of seed and plant catelogs and am now ready to start the serious stage of planning the terraces. I noticed while I was driving to work today that there is a building that has been built not too long ago. There are rocks all over the place around the building. I'm going to ask the people who are working on the building if I can have some of the rocks for my walls. Do you think they'll let me have some? I am also going to price the cost of a pallet of field stone at Home Depot and Lowes this week. I noticed that they've been cleaning out the gardening department.

So, any ideas about what to plant?? I would really like to make one part of a terrace blue and pink with some yellow accents in it. I want to put an angel statue in the middle of the plant grouping and make that part of the garden for our little angel that we lost. I do want some plantings that will fill in a bit and drape themselves over the walls also. Purples too...and reds.

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