How to Build Terraced Garden Beds
A sloped area in your yard can seem like a waste of space or even a nuisance. Planning can be difficult, and drainage issues can cause some major problems. Aside from sledding in the wintertime, it’s just not practical. Terracing, however, can turn this slope into useful garden beds. Lear how to build terraced garden beds in this Lowe’s video:
The terrace that will be created in this video is 18 feet long and will have three 6-foot beds. Drainage pipe will be installed that will catch water coming down the hill and divert it away from the house at each level.
Start by making a plan. Mark an outline for the terrace location and divide it into three equal sections for the garden beds. If you’re up against a brick wall, water is not much of an issue, but if you’re against existing siding, you’ll want to use some flashing or waterproof paint to prevent damage from soil moisture.
The terrace will be made of pressure-treated landscape timber, so we will use the plan to figure out how much timber we will need.
Start at the lowest point on the slope. Dig a trench, put one landscape timber in place and make it perfectly level. This allows you to use it as a reference for the other three. After digging the trench, take some paver base and lay it inside. Level with a long level, then take a timber, set it inside and go for a final level, using a shovel to spread the paver base and then level from front to back. Make any minor adjustments by tapping with a sledge hammer. Repeat these steps for the next three timbers. Lock the timbers together with timber screws.
For drainage, cut a notch in the front board and run a section of perforated pipe along the front, teeing it into the side. Drill a few holes in the timber and pound some rebar through to hold it in place. Next, lay a second course of timbers on top of the reference square, offsetting the joints.
Lay down some landscape fabric and put the perforated pipe on top of it. Spread gravel over the pipe and then wrap the landscape fabric back over the top. The landscape fabric will help prevent weeds, dirt and debris from entering the perforated pipe. Use some of the dirt previously dug out to help backfill the garden bed. Top off with garden soil.
If you’re going with three of more courses of timber, you’ll want to add a dead man, which is a piece of timber that runs perpendicular to the wall and sits down into the hill. On a steep slope, a dead man will prevent the wall from moving or bowing out.
Finish your project with plants.
