When we bought our property, 30 years ago the southwest corner of the house had a big spreading Cedar overhanging a block retaining wall. I took the Cedar out a couple years later. The wall was leaning, so I dug out behind it, straightened it up & added a couple "dead-men" to hold it. At the time, I terraced the bank with landscape timbers. The timbers have since rotted out, so I'm re-doing the terraces with 12" wall blocks. Been working on it off & on this summer.
Put in the bottom row today: 
I still need to back-fill with a wheelbarrow load of dirt. The gray pipe is the overflow for the rainwater tank inside the fenced in box at the top, couldn't put it underground because of a big root & the Dwarf Alberta Spruce. I have the blocks for the top row, but will wait until the plants die down to finish it. Not sure what I'll do with the outer edge yet! ~~ Lowell
