Raising the level of the lawn/beds

[83dons]

Hi I have built a summer house with stones around it. My garden slopes from the top where the grass is level with the base of the summer house to the bottom where the lawn is like 6-8 inches or so lower than the base. How would I go about raising the level of the grass and plant beds to the same height. I was hoping to source railways sleepers to lay along the bottom of the garden (there are already some around the summer house) and up the side fence too where the soil beds would meet the fence (as the neighbours garden will be a bit lower than mine). Also lay wooden panels around the beds at the bottom and side. Do I need to buy in some subsoil and proper soil to build up the level on top of the existing grass (which is patchy at best) and then buy rolled turf to lay out on top and more soil to build up the beds? Just looking for the cheapest way possible to do it myself really. Is it likely I can source old railway sleepers from a station maybe? Not sure what sort of volume of subsoil, soil or amount of grass to get hold of. The patch of grass needing replaced will be about 2.5m wide (from summer house stones to bed sideways) and 5.5m long from bottom bed to parallel with front of summer house. There is a photo below. Feel free to ask any questions. Would like to get this done this summer so the grass can take before winter.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Someone in our area was selling heavy timbers like railway sleepers for gardens, be cautious over actual old sleepers, they are treated year on year with some pretty toxic preservatives. In my garden I have gone for building blocks, they come in various materials, weights and prices, are easier to handle, will make up various sizes, and don't decay. I also found where I had wood before it tended to dry out the bed it was holding back, it was a lot lighter than railway sleeper size though.

 

[83dons]

Someone in our area was selling heavy timbers like railway sleepers for gardens, be cautious over actual old sleepers, they are treated year on year with some pretty toxic preservatives. In my garden I have gone for building blocks, they come in various materials, weights and prices, are easier to handle, will make up various sizes, and don't decay. I also found where I had wood before it tended to dry out the bed it was holding back, it was a lot lighter than railway sleeper size though.

Thanks didn't realise they could be toxic. I had a vegetable enclosure made up of the sleepers before I built the summer house and had 4 or 5 of them I reused around the fence sides as the French drains surrounding were higher level than neighbours gardens so they fit in there perfect. Any other ideas for backing to the beds be useful thanks! I will check out building blocks or similar at B & Q but was hoping to source materials at low cost maybe if people were throwing them out etc.

This is how I see it so far is this on the right lines?

- Remove the patchy grass on the right hand side up to about level with front of summer house.
- Fill in rough sub soil more at the bottom and some up towards the top and stampp down by foot
- Top off with maybe a couple inches of proper soil and stamp down by foot
- Lay rolled out lawn on top of that so the lawn is same level
- Lay railways sleepers around the bottom and right side of the garden against the fence (mainly to stop the soil going through fence into next doors gardens as theirs are lower to mine)
- Lay some sort of border timber to separate borders from the lawn at the bottom and right side.
- Fill the borders with some sub soil and soil til they come up to similar level as the grass
- Worry about plants at that point!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

It depends a bit how much of a rush you are in. I have a strip about 30' long between the path and the north fence that dropped away quite steeply, I laid a piece of 3"x2" up against the fence posts and put blocks up against it. I think they all came out of skips. When builders knock out a wall they don't bother rescuing the blocks, and they clean up well enough to make a retaining wall covered in earth. I filled in to make a level bed about 5' wide one end, narrowing down to about 3'6" the other. When I started I put bricks along the top of the blocks for an extra four inches, the level dropped as the earth settled and I took them off after about a year, four years now and the blocks seem to have settled in and not moved at all and they are all hidden by bushes, Michaelmas daisy and honeysuckle. If you buy blocks remember they make them 100mm or 140 mm, 100 is a good bit cheaper, you should get 4 blocks for a bit over a tenner, that's about a 6' fence panel's worth, and if you pick up the odd broken one it is easy to get exactly the length you want.