Question
Hi, hope you can help.

My back garden has a split level lawn and I want to level it out.  The lower half is about 2 feet below the upper and is about 40 feet by 12 feet.  The garden boundaries are wooden fencing.

What would be the best way to do this?  My guess would have been build up a brick boundary of 2 feet and then just dump a load of topsoil on the lower half, level it and compact it then turf it.

Does this sound right?  Would there be a cheaper way of doing the bulk filling and only use quality topsoil for the top few inches?  What would be the pitfalls in this job, I guess failing to compact properly would be one?

Thanks

Answer
without seeing it it's hard to say what to do. kind of like trying to do oral surgery/dentistry over the phone. does the ground have to be flat???what's wrong with having the slope go downhill(i'm assuming the flow is downhill away from the house towards a drainage swale). the cheaper way would be to rent a bobcat skidloader(< $200 per day) and sculpt the higher area into the lower area w/a gentle slope... you wouldn't have to buy any topsoil(about $200 per 14 yd load) to fill with. as long as you end up with an area that you can cut easily with a lawnmower what else do you want?? compaction of any new topsoli could be accomplished w/any water filled or heavy roller. not sure whatelse to say. send a digital photo (jpeg format) to
[email protected]   and i'll try to help you more. put grading on the email subject line so i will open it.