Landscaping - Grading

The minimum effective grade for tile lines is 3 inches for every 100 feet in length. When backfilling, be sure to put all the subsoil you have removed back in and tamp it down, if necessary. Any slight mound left after restoring topsoil will disappear after the first winter.

Measuring Your Grading

It is very difficult, even for a professional, to measure grades by eye. It is doubly difficult for the amateur. Therefore, if you have a grade to level, use as a guide a piece of twine that is pulled tight between two sticks imbedded in the ground. For leveling, once you have done the rough work, use a long board as a straight edge along the ground to insure your accuracy.

Grading for Terraces

> In leveling an area for a terrace, there is no need to insert subsoil drainage. Save the topsoil. For almost all terraces, it is a good idea to tamp the soil, and even to pour a quantity of gravel cinder or crushed rock as a base. Terraces require a level area as a rule, but the grade sloping away from the house should be maintained.

Terraces

Terraces present wonderful possibilities in the garden. They are outdoor living rooms during good weather and form a transition from the outdoors to the indoors throughout the year. The terrace may be either at ground level, below ground level, or raised above it. The simplest type is ground level, which requires only the grading we have indicated.

There is a wide choice of flooring materials to use. One may use cement, poured and leveled with a large board, but in maintaining the drainage grade or including shallow drainage paths, smooth turf may be used, in which case the preparation will be the same as for other lawn areas and various other types of bases.

The use of flagstones is made simple by applying a load of sand or gravel to the subsoil and digging the flagstones into the sand or gravel. The niches between the stones can be dug out and filled with top-soil and grass or other cover planted between them.