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Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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Posted by ammcdona Indiana (My Page) on Mon, Nov 9, 09 at 12:06
We bought a foreclosed cookie cutter home. We have remodeled the entire inside and have been trying to sell for a long time now. The only thing people do not like about the house is the huge hill that we have in our backyard. When you walk out the back door all you see is the neighbor directly behind our house. The hill does take up the majority of the backyard but there is plenty of functional space on each side of the house. We are looking for landscaping/decks/or any suggestions on how to divert attention to one of the sides of the house. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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| To me, the lack of a fence between you and the neighbor seems like a bigger problem than the hill. I would recommend that you start by putting in a fence. As for the hill, maybe you could terrace it? |
RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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| Some type of safety fence/seating/shrubbery on the patio would mitigagte the danger posed by the hill. A fence, as suggested would provide privacy, which is nice, so people can't see you on the hill. |
RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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- Posted by bahia SF Bay Area (My Page) on
Tue, Nov 10, 09 at 14:33
| Interesting that you call that a "hill" there in Indiana, when it just looks like a gentle slope to me, where a hill really is a hill, (I have some garden clients where the street is over 30 feet above the level of the house, and the bottom of the back yard at the fence line is another 30 feet below the main house level). It seems rather obvious that fencing across the rear property line is the first thing to do, (any reason why you didn't consider doing this?). The back yard looks pretty devoid of any plantings besides lawn and the patio, and could use some additional plantings to give it less of an industrial look. I am assuming that the real reason you are asking for help is that you would like an idea that doesn't cost much money. You could instead plant a hedge across the back property line, but anything that would give immediate impact would not be cheap either. As to what level of landscaping is necessary to help sell a flip remodel in your area, no one outside your area will be able to give you a realistic answer to this. Its a tough resell market when so many homes are going unsold, even when they are good values. Good luck with your home, maybe talk to some real estate agents who are actually managing to sell homes in your area, and get their ideas on what else you should do to get your house sold. I would guess that you need to lower the price if you are serious about getting it sold, even if it means taking a loss. |
RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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| We have thought of a fence but to get it to be private we would have to raise the fence 4-5 feet before even installing it to make it private. In the second picture that I originally posted you can somewhat see what our neighbors did...they put a several layers of brick and then fence on top. I think in that picture you can really gage how much higher we would need to build ours up for it to offer some privacy. I posted another below that might give a better perception of the height. While I love how theirs looks I am not sure it will look that great raised up 4-5 feet in this little neighborhood. What do you guys think? While we don't want to put heaps of money into this backyard because the ROI will not be there, we do want it to sell so we are willing to put out enough to get rid of it! :-) 
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RE: RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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| Oh and as far as plantings or anything of that nature we haven't even started. In the picture it looks decieving because there is even very little grass it is mostly clover and other random weeds. We didn't want to plant anything because we didn't know if we were going to end up chopping up the hill. I think once we figure out what to do we will kill everything, plant grass, and all the other pretties! |
RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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Where is your property line located between your house and the house in the first picture? How much of a drop is there between the height of the patio and the bottom of the hill?
What would be affordable in terms of addressing the problem? A fence? A little more than a fence? A fence, a stone wall and some fill?
Its hard for me to tell from the picture, and your neighbors might not like it , but you could do a concrete block wall like your neighbor did below their fence, only perhaps a little higher and then use fill on your side of the fence to decrease the steepness of the "hill". Your yard would be much less steep and then you could use a fence or hedge to screen the remaining view to the neighbors house. thats a much bigger project though. |
RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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- Posted by catkim San Diego 10/24 (My Page) on
Wed, Nov 11, 09 at 18:33
| Why not put a U-shaped shoulder-high fence around the outer half of the concrete patio slab. That alone will give you a good deal more privacy than currently, and won't cost so much. Plant some shrubs of similar height to either side of the fence to extend the privacy effect and mitigate the starkness. If you want to make it look even better, build the fence with a wide, flat surface on top to use for food service, potted plants, outdoor sculpture, etc. A small touch like that may help differentiate your "cookie cutter". |
RE: Suggestions for Landscaping a Hill in Backyard
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| Can't tell exactly where your property line is, which could make a difference. However,my starting point would be to completly trash that ugly as sin concrete patio. You said you would likely kill off the lawn/ weeds etc once a plan is in place. That's good because MY suggestion is to pull 12-18" off around the house and move it to the "valley" (I could do that with 2 friends in a weekend)using a decent roto-tiller. But before that happens you need to set a retaining wall along your boundry line to take the weight. The one between your house and that neighbour is fine as long as the height of his soil is about the same as yours. Basically you need to level out your soil levels. Once that is done you put in a large wood (or one of the newer composites) deck instead of that concrete. Stepping down from the back door (I would be using 2 x 15" wide steps that travel a good foot past the door frame) is fine when done right. IF you made the deck basically the length of the house you then only need to terrace the side sections to the new soil level. As I said it is a bit hard to tell from the photos, and I have no idea what is really going on on the sides and front of the house, but that is my gut starting point. Also you can add an extra 2' of height to that existing fence by putting a lattice cap on it. |
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