The project is underway. Today they got a load of high quality topsoil and spread it around over the NC red clay. Is it okay to have the topsoil be quite deep? It seems as if they are using it as fill in addition to as topsoil.

One concern is that the slope is too steep on the western edge of the terrace between the terrace and the garage. Against the garage I have an espalier apricot on a cedar trellis. (I know it needs pruning!) Now the soil between by apricot and the terrace is 6" or so above the original grade. I was wondering if it would not be better to make some sort of raised bed wall along the southern edge of the porch. There is going to be a sand rock path exiting west on the trellis and going between the garage and the porch.

Here is my best picture of the slope off the terrace. You can see the deep black topsoil over the red clay

and the view looking toward the garage

And towards the south side of the house.

On the rest of the areas that have gotten churned up and pulverized into dusty red clay, how deep should make the topsoil.

I am anxious to get this resolved immediately because the bobcat rental is so darn high!!

By the way, for short term I am going to sow a cover crop of buckwheat and sweet clover to lock the soil in until fall when grass can be planted.

Thanks for your help!!

Anyway, to bump it back up, I'll say that I don't find your question quite clear. You are going to grass it all in after your cover crop, so it should be reasonably protected from erosion... but it sounds as if you are particularly concerned about the west side facing the espalier, yet you wonder if there should be retaining toward the south - I'm not clear on why that will help. And if you do a retaining wall, are you still just looking at grass? Or is that to bring down the level of the grass?

I know nothing about topsoil but it seems like a better thing to use as fill than whatever junk dirt is usually used. But I hope someone else chimes in there.

KarinL

Considering the depth of the added fill under the terrace -- as well as the added topsoil adjacent to it -- how deep should the metal edging be anchored?

[This is NC, so the zone is most likely 7a-8a.]

The metal edging will be almost flush with the surface material on either side: sand rock and grass or planted bed. It is anchored with metal stakes.

I will do what I can to pull back the soil that got pushed over the apricot trees roots. I don't want it smothered!! I just planted it less than a year ago so the roots probably do not extend that far into the path yet.

I pulled some rustic looking cement block from the pile that was going to the dump. there is enough to build a low retaining wall that will extend from the corner of the house by the porch and then curve around to form the edge of the walkway that exits the west end of the terrace. When I build up more savings I can cover it (or face it) with stacked stone like the foundation of the old part of the house. The purpose of the retaining wall is to create a flat planting bed on the south side of the porch. Right now, when you are standing near that space it feels like the slope is too steep and "pushes" you into the side of the garage. It is not restful looking, if you know what I mean. The path from the terrace will curve and go through the space between the garage and the porch. It will meet up with the kitchen stairs.

I think I need more help from you all. You are so knowledgeable!!! I will rustle up some pics of the yard so you can help with the design of the paths (please!). I have so many questions! I also can scan and post a plan view from the architect that I drew paths on.

So threads which never get a "follow-up" post are listed first. If they never get a reply, eventually the software will bump them down; I don't remember how many days or weeks that takes. [When someone posts spam, we'll "answer" it so it sinks down on the list.]

By "answering" your own thread with a second post, you bumped it down below the threads which had never been replied to, and it was listed as having a "follow-up" post. Threads which have received at least one reply are listed in chronological order by the time of reply, with the most-recently-replied-to thread first.

As I don't clear my browser's most recent History, the threads I'm up-to-date with show up in purple, while those with posts I haven't seen show up in blue. So it doesn't matter much to me where a post is listed: I look at nearly everything that shows up as blue, though not always immediately. However, others might see a thread steadily accumulating "follow-ups," and not click on it: perhaps they're busy in RL, or that thread title doesn't sound like something they're interested in, or they already looked at the original post and either didn't have time to answer or didn't have much to say on the issue. In that situation, they'd notice the thread was accumulating "follow-ups" and would assume the OP's question was being answered. So they might never click on the thread to find out what was being said. So by "answering" your own thread, you might lower your chance of receiving answers!

I don't know apricots, but most small trees could be moved at this point and even if it could not, is that one tree really more important than the whole project?

Look at your overall design first and then, look at individual plants.