bank with no wall

[sunny11]

Hi

I recently posted in the building section about a retaining wall problem with our garden. Having now had a builder look at it, he seems to think that sloping the garden rather than replacing the wall is the way to go, but he and the surveyor (who recommended him) differ about the approach.

My main questions is whether a steepish (35 degree angle) slope would, in itself be stable without any sort of retaining wall?

And, if it was, could I plant on it so that I can screen our rather ugly garage from the view in the garden (currently it is hidden by mature and very attractive shrubs along the top of the wall (hence the wall problem!)

Thanks

Sunny

 

[wrathkeg]

as well as the angle of the slope, you need to take into account how much ground is sloping: are you talking a slope of 35 degrees for a foot? 3 foot? 10 foot? etc.

since the builder and surveyor have seen it and presumably took into accoun the nature of the ground, they are better placed than us to decide on whether a wall is needed. what do they think you should do?

 

[r896neo]

in any clay or relatively stable soil 35 degrees will be fine from a self supporting point of view the main thing you need to manage is water erosion of the slope. Hence planting will help.

By the time you cut a slope like that it will have no top soil on most of it and adding new topsopil is difficult as it just washes off if its not retained by geocell or other similar products.

You can pin turf to it but consider mowing/strimming problems.

Planting of ground cover etc can be harder to establish due to as above being far into the subsoil.