Sloping gardens

Hello all, 

Wanting to pick the hive mind, if I may. My house hunting has not been going particularly well (which is probably good as I would have struggled to view much over the past few weeks post-COVID). There aren't many houses with decent gardens coming up on Rightmove right now, so I'm poring over the few that do appear. There was a Victorian detached house that was in need of "a full scheme of modernisation" that had an enormous garden that made me want to weep when I viewed it on the satellite images. The house doesn't look that bad on the surface, but the fact the estate agents comment on the work it needs suggests that there are some hidden horrors! If it weren't on a very busy main road in one of my less-preferred areas and was a three-bed rather than a two, I would definitely be viewing it as a potential forever home with a view to slowly improving it over a number of years. 

Another house has just come up with a very long (but narrow) south facing garden. It's not my ideal location, but not very far from my parents which could come in handy. It's also well under my maximum spend. The house is in good condition (neutrally decorated - other than one very red wall - with a tasteful kitchen and bathroom so rather better than some of the 1950s bathrooms in the houses I've been viewing so far). I wouldn't expect to have to do a lot of work on the house (though there's always scope for the unexpected!) so could focus on the garden right off the bat. The garden is quite overlooked by the other houses, which is a definite negative for me, but I could hope to remedy that with the right planting. However, it is also on quite a slope (away from the house)! There's a flatter area at the top but they've gone and stuck a load of decking on that part (as an aside, I would like to say that I absolutely loathe decking and it wouldn't be staying in any garden I expected to make a forever home). 

I grew up in a house with a long sloping garden, but my parents mostly kept it as either lawn or wild growth (plus ponds, and some beds around the sides of the one flat part) until just recently so I don't have much experience of growing on a slope. I would think drainage might be an issue? And things washing down the slope if I left too much open ground at any given time? I wouldn't really want to have to terrace it, or put in lots of levelled off raised beds (I'm hoping to go with more of a Charles Dowding no-dig no-bed-sides approach) so I'd appreciate any thoughts/experience you may have.

I'll be viewing the house this weekend. Obviously, it may not end up being somewhere I want to put in an offer for (the number of houses overlooking the garden definitely gives me pause, I'd prefer a house that needs a bit more doing up, and it's not my first choice area). However, given the geography where I'm house-hunting, it's very unlikely that I'm going to find a perfect large flat garden so the more I know about slope gardening the better!

Here is a link to the house in question. I'll probably only leave the link up for a few days for privacy reasons (especially if I make an offer!) Would be grateful if you could all avoid naming the location in your comments!

Looks lovely, Pros. Big garden, south facing slope, unshaded, means it will make the most of the sun. Great views.
I looked at the aerial view to see what the neighbours had done with their gardens for ideas. Lots more going on in their's. Plenty of scope. The decked area seems to have storage beneath it - great for all the tools. Could maybe put a greenhouse on it if its solid - lot of pots anyway. Looks like a shed and another flat area at the bottom of the garden.
Seems to be a slope at the front of the house too - don't know whether the rain water would run towards the house, rather than away?
See how you feel about it all when you view. I've found you know within minutes whether a house is right for you - or not!

As an aside, I do so hate the listings that Photoshop the photos by adding fake skies and turning the grass a shade of green not often seen in nature. It's particularly noticeable when they forget to Photoshop the miserable grey sky as seen through the windows, but all the outdoor shots are beautiful blue skies with fluffy clouds - and those fluffy clouds are the same in multiple pictures taken from different angles. Pictures #2 and #12 have the exact same flying-duck shaped cloud on the far left, even though one picture is taken facing south and one facing north!

Looks lovely, Pros. Big garden, south facing slope, unshaded, means it will make the most of the sun. Great views.
I looked at the aerial view to see what the neighbours had done with their gardens for ideas. Lots more going on in their's. Plenty of scope. The decked area seems to have storage beneath it - great for all the tools. Could maybe put a greenhouse on it if its solid - lot of pots anyway. Looks like a shed and another flat area at the bottom of the garden.
Seems to be a slope at the front of the house too - don't know whether the rain water would run towards the house, rather than away?
See how you feel about it all when you view. I've found you know within minutes whether a house is right for you - or not!

Thank you for the thoughts 

I hadn't thought about where a greenhouse would go or that it was likely to be a little challenging to put one on a slope. Good thinking about using the decking for that. I have a checklist of research questions to go through before and during viewings which includes thinking about greenhouse siting, but haven't had chance to do my due diligence since this one got listed! I will get it done tomorrow before I view on Sunday. 

The flat area at the bottom looks handy, but is likely to be shaded by the trees. I did think it might be a good place for chickens at some point in the future - I haven't seen many houses listed where I could keep some well away from neighbouring houses (to minimise any moaning about noise/mess).

The view is definitely very appealing. I grew up in a village a valley over, so it certainly evokes fond memories (maybe a touch of hiraeth if you will permit an Englishwoman to borrow a word?) and I certainly have missed similar views in the majority of rather urban or suburban houses I've lived in since leaving home.  

My parents home has a drive that slopes down towards the house, but because the street is on a hill (as this one is) heavy rain actually just flows down the road and not towards the house. Hopefully the same here, as I don't want to be getting the sandbags out every time we have a downpour!

I think you are right about knowing very quickly how you feel about a house. I suspect that this one is going to feel a bit soulless when I actually see it, as I think I'm really hankering after a bit of a dated property that has been well-loved by a now-elderly person but is in need of a little TLC (interestingly, there are parallels with my work where I take rather crumbly and frail older people and try to patch over the cracks to keep them in good shape for a little longer). I had very positive feelings about the last house I viewed (this one), but it just needed too much work for me to oversee while working full time, even staggering it over several months (new kitchen/bathroom, new central heating system, rewiring, replastering, roof repair, and then all the redecorating). Never mind the cost! Though I might still have bitten the bullet if the garden had been significantly bigger (it was a bit smaller than it looks in the pictures).

Pros, Hiraeth is one of those beautiful Welsh words, like Cwtch that you understand in your heart and soul, not by looking it up in a book. Croeso.

I love looking at house details and pretending that I'm thinking of buying it. So I've had a look at the other house too. The garden looks interesting but very shady. Look at the shadows across the grass. Growing veg might be a problem without some heavy pruning of those trees.

I love looking at house details and pretending that I'm thinking of buying it. So I've had a look at the other house too. The garden looks interesting but very shady. Look at the shadows across the grass. Growing veg might be a problem without some heavy pruning of those trees.

That garden was largely south-facing too and most of the shade came from within the boundary rather than outside, so there was decent scope to get a lot more light in with some determined pruning. It would definitely be nice to start with a garden that was already unshaded though!

One of the problems is that privacy often comes from things that cast shade, so you can't always have both together without being a long way from your neighbours. I don't mind being a bit overlooked by immediate neighbours but the house I'm viewing on Sunday appears to have a garden overlooked by the entire stretch of road, plus the houses on the road running perpendicular. I know some people wouldn't care at all (and really, nobody is actually going to be watching!), but I'd feel very self-conscious if I felt that exposed. However, I will see what it actually feels like in person. The estate agent said they'd had a lot of interest in the house (and I believe them, for once) so I'm sure it will sell this weekend (they appear to be having back to back viewings all of Saturday and Sunday, with me securing the penultimate slot 24 hours after the listing went live!) I think I will have to know by Monday morning if I want to make an offer, so I had better get cracking with my pre-viewing research!

We are on a slope and for my veg beds I just have boards along the down side of the beds the run across the slope. The ones that run with the slope don't have anything. I don't do proper no dig simply because I have to periodically remove the vole/mole runs so when forking out the runs I make sure to move the soil back uphill a little! Otherwise the compost doesn't fall off too much.

As an aside, we put wooden decking down on our outside sitting area havng experienced the unbearable radiating heat from stone or tiled terraces down here, The wood is much nicer on the feet when the temperature heads towards 40.

When I had a little house down west it was built on a cliff face, literally!. There were 100 steps from the road to the top of the garden, 50 to the front door and no car access. Kept me fit.
This was my veg garden in the trees.

   

Pros, your "sloping garden" would be a doddle in comparison.

That looks a very Veggie garden

More crazy photos at https://gigglingintwogardens.blogspot.co...mment-form

My defunct blog!!