The brief
The yard fell away from the house so steeply that the old deck was the only flat spot. The owners wanted somewhere to eat outside and somewhere to sit round a fire, without a wall of railings.
What we did
We cut the slope into two terraces held by dry-laid stone walls. The upper one carries a flagstone patio off the kitchen; the lower holds a sunken fire circle with built-in stone seating, reached by wide, shallow steps.
Planting in the wall pockets and along the steps, mostly low grasses, thyme and creeping phlox, keeps the stone from feeling hard. Drainage behind the walls and under the patio sends water to the side yard rather than into the house.
A year on
The walls have weathered in and the planting spills over them the way we intended. The fire circle gets a check and a clean each fall.