Creative Ideas For Landscaping On a Slope For A Tiny House

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Not everyone is blessed with an open, flat lawn or backyard. Some people live in hilly grounds or the rolling countryside. Even with a sloping backyard or lawn, you can make your hilly lawn feel like an oasis with some creativity. A little creativity will go a long way to ensure you incorporate some great landscaping ideas into your tiny sloping plot.

There are numerous landscaping ideas for your tiny house on a slope. Building terraces across sloping plots is probably the most common option for dealing with an uneven landscape. But, there are lots of other options if you want to make the most out of your tiny sloping backyard. From sunken sitting areas to snaking walkways, there are many creative and exciting ideas for sloping outdoor spaces.

Furthermore, you don’t need a landscaping degree to transform your tiny backyard into something beautiful and exciting. You only need some creativity and you are good to go.

Here are some bright ideas to hit the garden slopes running.

Add a Deck: For starters, you can try building decks on your downward sloping lawn or backyard. This will afford you level space for entertainment and give you an awesome view of your garden. You can also raise your deck on pillars and use the space below for storage or play space. However, this will depend on the angle of the slope. If you have a steep slope, you can straddle it with a multilevel deck and transform it into valuable living space.

Design Terraces Around Different Themes: Another great idea for landscaping on a slope is designing terraces around different themes. When you build terraces along a sloping background and give each terrace a clear identity, your backyard will garner extra style points. For instance, you can try putting a water feature, structural plants, and planting set in different levels.
Alternatively, you can build a small patio or a comfortable outdoor seating area by paving a level. Sloping plots make for an excellent place to design and build an inviting patio where you can sit and survey the rest of your backyard.

Tiered Landscaping: You can create tiers on your sloping plot to help manage erosion and enable you to use different landscaping elements. If you want to give the overall look of your property a cohesive design, tiered landscaping is the way to go. You can use stone pavers, railroad ties, or concrete to form your tiers.

Install a Rail: Terraces can be dangerous if they create steep drops. As per local building codes, you might need to install railings between a terraced area and the ground if there is a grade change. While railings are mostly for safety purposes, they can be stylish too.

Create Zones: While it is best to position an outdoor dining area near the house, you can devote reading or lounging spaces anywhere in your tiny sloping plot. You can take full advantage of your sloping plot by creating zones devoted to different purposes. For example, you can build a small terrace and add outdoor furniture for reading or relaxing. You can use the more private reaches of your tiny sloping garden to create reading and relaxing zones.

Try Tiered Vertical Gardening on a Slope: If you love gardening, your tiny sloping plot should not stop you from doing what you love. A vertical garden can be a great way to get the most out of your tiny sloping plot. You can grow your plants using vertical columns using cheap and recycled materials such as old paint cans and plastic bottles.

Vertical gardens are inexpensive and require little space meaning they will be a good option for your limited amount of space.

Squeeze in a Seat: While a sloping garden is not best suited for creating a play space or entertainment area, it is ideal for sitting and chilling. You can wall your slope to create beds; a horizontal yard big enough for squeezing in a seat or two. This will provide you with a spot where you can sit and enjoy the views in your garden.

Build Some Stairs: If vegetation has covered your tiny sloping plot in glorious abandon, you can restore some order by building a staircase leading up to level ground. It doesn’t matter if you go with concrete or a wooden set of stairs, this feature will blend more with your tiny sloping landscape if you line either side with plantings.

Use Natural Stones to Make a Natural Staircase: Instead of using concrete or wood to make steps, you can make use of natural materials in your backyard such as stones to make a stepped pathway through your sloping plot. A natural stone staircase will complement your landscaping design.

Go With Green Steps: If you want an easier and simpler option, go green with the steps on your sloping garden. The vegetation on green steps creates a naturalistic effect on your sloping landscape. The best vegetation for green steps is grass.

Lay a Winding Path: A winding or slopped walkway is much easier and safer to explore a sloped plot. A meandering pathway on a sloping garden provides an attractive focal point and is usually more visible from the house. A winding walkway helps draw the eye through the entire landscape, from the bottom of your gently sloping garden all the way to the upper reaches. It is a gorgeous way to link your house with the exterior.

Design a Hillside Waterfall: Another way to use the gradient that your hilly background provides to full advantage is by designing a small and simple water feature like a waterfall. A waterfall will bring with it the soothing sound of water, creating a serene ambiance in your outdoor space. This water feature will turn your tiny outdoor space into a chill magical oasis.

Erect a Retaining Wall: By installing a retaining wall, you can make your sloping plot more functional. Cut away a portion of a slope and build a retaining wall to hold back the soil and reduce erosion. This will give you an excellent opportunity to dedicate a planting area along and behind the retaining wall. A retaining wall will also enable you to reclaim a portion of your yard for planting grass on flat ground.

Cultivate a Rock Garden: Typically, sloping properties suffer from bad drainage and soil erosion. This often poses landscaping challenges for plants. When you nestle clusters of rocks and boulders of varying sizes on your sloping yard, you create anchorage for rock-loving plants like ornamental grasses, stonecrop, and creeping ground covers. On top of creating a stable base for rock-loving plants, rock gardens are lush and satisfying to the eye because they add natural beauty. They also reduce the amount of maintenance you will need to do.

To create a nice rock garden, arrange the rocks into informal staggered groups. Start with the boulders and bury the bottom one-third for stability and firmly pack soil around the soil. For more aesthetic appeal, finish with plantings.

Plant Native Plants: When landscaping a sloping yard, you can never go wrong with native plants. Vegetation cover that is native to your region can help reduce maintenance load in areas that would be challenging to mow and landscape. Without much of your input, native plants provide a network of roots to hold soil and help reduce erosion. Festooning a hillside with native plants is a great landscaping tip for sloping yards.

Build a Vegetable Garden On Slope: You can make use of unused space in your sloping yard by installing raised veggie beds. Use the deeper portions of the veggie beds to plant vegetables that need more soil, and the shallower sections for herbs and climbing plants.

Devise a Hillside Fire Pit: Sloping plots are ideal for building hardscapes. Hardscapes such as hillside fire pits are common and can be rewarding landscaping endeavors. A hillside fire pit can transform a neglected space in your tiny sloping yard into valuable space for entertaining guests.

Lighting for sloping gardens: Installing a simple spotlight in your sloping garden will be beneficial especially if there are steps. Ample lighting will prevent people from stumbling in the dark. But, you can go the extra mile and install pathway lights scattered in different levels to draw attention to the multi-layered structure of the sloping yard.

Conclusion

There are several ways you can plan and design the landscape for your tiny house on a slope. You only have to come up with clever designs to turn awkward space in your sloping landscape into a perfect outdoor area.

Sloping plots present numerous opportunities for trying out different structural designs and planting schemes.

Whatever you decide to do to your sloping plot, do bear in mind that sloping yards offer many options in terms of landscaping. Do not be afraid to try out different sloping landscaping ideas on your tiny house. It is easier and simpler to work on a small piece of sloping land than a large one.