Garden Steps Finally Completed And Updated Post as Promised

Carole
by Carole
4 Materials
I posted a little while back that we were getting some 18 garden steps made for our back yard to traverse the steep hill. Our lovely neighbour who is a carpenter made the timber frames for us - some 1.5 metres in width and he also fitted them into the hillside by digging out the ground and clods of grass to fit them, join them one to another with galvanised steel brackets, ensure they were level and peg them firmly into the ground as he went along with hardwood pegs. Timber used was H4 treated ironbark. Treated against borer as they are exposed to the elements and some of the timber is buried in the soil. Anyhow, here is the end result.
View through the garden gate
Each step was painstakingly filled with decomposed granite, tamped down with feet and evened as much as possible with the back of the shovel. You may see a little messy area to the right of one step which is where we ramped the granite so we could barrow it down alongside the steps to fill each step. This is so we did not have to bump the wheelbarrow over the timber edges of each step to get to the bottom. You can build a 'ramp' of granite through the middle of each step if you need to in order to avoid bumping the timber edges, but we only needed to do that on one top step to get to the sloping sides. Easier for us.
This gives a better idea of the gradient of the hill and the size of the steps and you can see the little blue fescue grass plants I have put along the right hand side. These will grow and fill in and should create a blue/grey edge to soften the timber edges visually.


The overall cost of this project was just shy of $1,900 Australian dollars. Had we employed a landscaper it would have cost around $5,000 Australia dollars. Our cost included paying a good neighbour who is a carpenter to make the steps and fit them into the hill for us and we did the labouring of shifting and loading the granite fill ourselves. Our costs covered all labour and all materials.
Suggested materials:
  • H4 treated Ironbark timber   (Timber and hardware store)
  • Galvanised Steel plates and screws   (Timber and hardware store)
  • Hardwood timber made into pegs   (Timber and hardware store)
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2 of 19 comments
  • Lucille White Lucille White on Apr 28, 2022

    Yes, i'm inspired. I'd like to try for steps going up a slope but it will not be 18 steps.

    Thank you for this information.

  • Kristy Kristy on Nov 20, 2022

    This is exactly what we looking for! Thank you for sharing.

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