HILLSIDE GARDEN · QUAIL RIDGE · 0.6 AC · 210 NATIVES · 2025
Terraces cut into a slope nobody could stand on
The slope behind the house was held by railroad ties that had been failing for a decade. Everything above the ties was bare, and everything below it arrived in the driveway each winter.
BEFORE
JANUARY 2025 · REAR SLOPE · EXISTING TIE WALLS
AFTER
OCTOBER 2025 · SAME SLOPE · ONE SEASON AFTER PLANTING
DETAIL
TERRACE EDGE · CREEPING THYME AT THE JOINT
- Site
- South-facing slope, roughly 2:1 at the steepest run
- Area
- 0.6 acres, rear slope and side path
- Planting
- 210 plants, 28 species, natives and one fruit tree
- Water
- Overhead for establishment only, then drip on the terraces
- Hardscape
- Dry-stacked stone, four terraces, 190 linear feet total
- Built
- Winter to spring 2025, fourteen weeks, crew of five
Dry-stacked stone was the right answer here because it can be rebuilt by hand. Mortared walls on a slope like this fail all at once; a dry wall gives up one stone at a time and tells you where the water is going. We set the four terraces to follow contour rather than to make even steps, which is why the path switches back twice instead of running straight.
The planting is grasses first. Deergrass and purple needlegrass went in at the top of each terrace to hold the face through the first winter, with sages and buckwheat filling in behind them the following spring. The one non-native is a Santa Rosa plum on the lowest terrace, which the family asked for and which sits where it can be picked from the path.
We watered overhead for the first two summers and then took the risers out. That is the part of a hillside garden that takes patience: the plants have to be pushed to root deep before the support comes off, and there is no way to hurry it.