Last winter, I bought two pallets of flat stone from a stone yard and constructed some paths and terraces on the west facing, sloping side of my parents' house. its a twelve foot wide sideyard that slopes at about 20 degrees to a 3 foot high cement retaining wall on the property line. There is also a plastic white picket fence going along the property line, so I constructed the terrace wall about a foot from the retaining wall, about 1 ft strong. I used old railroad ties and logs stacked laterally on top of each other. The clay soil caused somewhat of a water logging, as there is no where for the water to drain. It worked well for the past year. I planted eggplant, tomatoes, blackberries, mint. The mint and blackberries are faring well through the winter. I also built another tier above this terrace a foot from the house, using the flat stone upright, buttressed against each other and sunk into the ground below. I have had many design revelations since returning after being gone seven months. My mom took some pictures for me before starting work so you can see the work I did last year. I need to search for pics from before last year's work. I removed the white picket fence to give room to dig a new drainage trench for a 50 foot long, dry stacked retaining wall that will bring the soil level up 2 feet strong from the top of the new 6 inch deep drainage trench. I will be removing the flat stone terrace and bring the entire sideyard up to one level. The area will be 10 feet deep by 50 feet long. After the first level is built, I will build steps coming down from the porch.