The ups and downs of designing a sloping garden - By garden designers Lesley Hegarty and Robert Webber

Bringing slopes into cultivation can seem a daunting prospect for some. But there are real advantages to gardens which have changes of level within them. A gradient can allow far reaching views and a more exciting dynamic than flat land. Such sites are usually also freer draining, which may improve both the range and health of the plants which can be cultivated.

There may be no real need to amend slopes generally in rural situations unless there is serious land erosion, cultivation of borders is difficult or the slope is so steep that it is hazardous.

Slopes can actually be part of the natural lie of the land and help integrate the garden into its wider surrounding. They can however potentially present safety and health hazards. Descending strains the knees, climbing makes you puff and walking across a slope is just plain uncomfortable! Organising the ascent and descent with suitable paths and steps or inclines allows you to reduce the effort involved and brings your personal safety within comfortable parameters. You could perhaps take a flight of steps or ramps down through the terrain, cutting into the slope to assist access.

If there is any serious degree of surface erosion and if you want any kind of formal approach to your garden, levelling the entire surface in tiers down, or up the garden is the order of the day. This sounds serious work, but need not be. Usually some kind of cut and fill process is required.

Verticality takes the landscape into a new plane. The resultant landscape can be a real style statement. And it will produce a much more visible and enjoyable garden. You are making a serious increase in the structural element of the garden, which can decide or enhance the atmosphere of the garden. Changes of level can provide a crisp structure as part of a contemporary design. At its most theatrical you could create a more traditional, almost Italianate effect of descending terraces.

The retaining walls can be old bricks or stone, either dry or mortared, for a classic feel. Sleepers may also be used where the ambience is to be more relaxed. You could, if you chose, opt for the contemporary style of gabions which can be filled with a quirky array of recherché debris ranging from broken terracotta tile through to sea washed pebbles.

If the feeling is more rural you may simply opt for grassy banks. However maintenance could be an issue here. Strimming can be time consuming and a flymo suspended from a rope is not an activity the health and safety inspectorate warm to!

And any of these choices, each creating a subtle microclimate within the garden, may allow for planting opportunities: South facing slopes permit the cultivation of tender plants, while those facing north may be better suited to shady plants etc. Sleepers could be softened with trailing shrubs. You could provide pockets in walls for alpines and a grassy bank could be massed with naturalised bulbs for seasonal display.

Any levelling results in the need to physically move from one level to another. This can again allow style and design statements. You could choose steps or ramps. Ramps of course assist in making the garden more accessible to all. It is also worth remembering that steps and ramps can go parallel to the terrace wall as well as directionally away from it.

Changes in level also provide opportunities for dramatic water features, since the fall of the water can be a design statement in itself. Arranging a seating area near such a waterfall could seriously affect your lifestyle.

Where levels of ground are changed great care should also be taken with regard to the soil to ensure stability. For the future growing conditions of plants it is imperative not to intermix top and subsoil. It is the top soil which contains the life blood of the soil and is what your plants will grow in.

It is also vital that soil levels are not changed significantly around the trunks and across the rooting zones of established trees. If you do not pay attention to this you may lose your trees!