In message , Andre
Boyle writes
Hi all,

We have recently moved into a new house and although the garden is
reasonable in size it is on a slope.

It is useful to define how much of a slope - part of my garden front
lawn is 1:3.

What we want to do is create a decked area at the house and then have two
terraced sections of the garden. Does anyone have any online guides or
advice on building retaining walls/structures to keep the soil in place.
Suggestion so far have gone from brick walls to metal/wooden posts with
wooden slats.

Remember that whatever you use you will have to look at from the low
part of the garden. So choose the materials to look reasonable and fit
in or arrange the planting to hide the wall. Natural sandstone looks
nice.

The retainer will only need to be about 1.5 foot tall.

Part of my garden retaining wall brick is 4 foot tall, 20 years old and
thinking about falling down due probably to inadequate original
foundations and a bit of help from a nearby tree. If you find any half
decent guidelines I would be interested too.

Problems with normal house grade brick walls against soil are that they
tend to get saturated with water in winter and spall in the frost.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown