Valley View climbs. This hillside neighborhood on the south side of York is built on ground that never quite levels out: streets that run uphill, front lawns perched above the sidewalk on a grassy bank, backyards that fall away toward the rear fence. If you own a home here, you already know that the flat, square yard in most landscaping photos looks nothing like your property. Landscaping in Valley View, PA is really the craft of landscaping on a slope, and that is a different job with different rules.
It happens to be a job we know well. Meadow View Gardens Landscaping is a family-run company based on Poplars Road in York, and our owner and designer, Rick Jacobus, has spent more than 30 years working the rolling ground of York County. Rick hand-designs every project, walks the property with you before anything is drawn, and manages each job himself from the first stake in the ground to the final cleanup. On a hillside lot, that continuity is how walls end up straight, steps end up safe, and water ends up where it belongs.
How do you landscape a sloped yard in Valley View, PA?
You start by deciding which parts of the yard should hold still and which parts can keep their pitch, then use walls, terraces, steps, and the right plants to make that decision permanent. Trying to treat a sloped lot like a flat one is what creates the familiar Valley View frustrations: a lawn that is a chore to mow sideways, mulch that migrates downhill every spring, and a backyard nobody uses because there is nowhere level to put a chair.
This is why every hillside project we take on begins with our landscape design and installation process rather than a quick quote for one wall or one bed. Rick reads the grade the way a builder reads a blueprint: where the water comes from when it rains, where the soil is already creeping, which part of the slope gets sun and which sits in shade. A plan drawn from that walk-through often solves three problems with one structure. That is the difference between a yard that was patched and one that was designed.
Do you need a retaining wall, or can you plant the slope instead?
It depends on how steep the ground is and whether you need level space, and an honest answer saves you real money. A gentle grade that you simply do not want to mow can often be stabilized with deep-rooted plantings alone. A steeper bank, or any spot where you want a patio, a play area, or a garden you can actually stand in, calls for structure. Our retaining walls, steps, and walkways are the backbone of most of the work we do in this neighborhood.
On Valley View’s sloped lots, the solution usually takes one of three shapes:
- A single retaining wall that carves one generous level terrace out of the hillside, giving the backyard the flat room it never had.
- A series of shorter walls that step the slope into terraced planting beds, so soil, mulch, and moisture stay on each level instead of sliding to the bottom.
- A planted slope, using groundcovers and shrubs whose roots knit the bank together, where holding the soil matters more than gaining flat space.
Steps and landings tie it all together. Many homes here sit well above the street or well above their own backyards, and a properly built set of steps with a landing or two turns a scramble into a walk. Because Rick designs and manages every job personally, the steps, walls, and beds arrive as one composition rather than three separate projects.
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Owner-designed by Rick Jacobus and built by our own crew, start to finish — free, no-pressure consultations.
How do you keep rain from washing out a hillside yard?
You design the water’s path before you design anything else. On a slope, every storm is a test: runoff arrives from uphill neighbors, gathers speed across open lawn, and looks for the softest route down, which is usually your new planting bed. Drainage-smart design means routing downspouts deliberately, giving water a graded path around terraces instead of through them, and building every wall with the gravel backfill and drainage it needs to relieve pressure instead of fighting it.
“On a hillside, water is the first client. I figure out what the rain wants to do, then design the landscape so it can do it somewhere harmless.” — Rick Jacobus, owner and designer
Planting is part of the drainage plan too. The right shrubs and perennials slow water down and hold soil in place, and every plant we install is locally sourced and proven in York County soil and weather, so it keeps doing that job through our freeze-and-thaw winters.
What can terraced planting beds do for a Valley View backyard?
They turn one steep, unusable bank into two or three level gardens that hold their soil, hold their moisture, and finally hold your attention. Terracing is our favorite answer for this neighborhood because it works with the hillside character instead of erasing it: from the house you look out over descending layers of color rather than a wall of grass. You choose the plants alongside Rick, and he will tell you plainly which ones will still fit their terrace in ten years and which will swallow it in three. A few strong plants per level, given room to mature, always outlasts a crowded bed.
Why hire a York County landscaper for hillside work?
Because slope work punishes guesswork, and we have spent three decades learning what York County hillsides do to walls, steps, and plantings that were built casually. Meadow View Gardens is licensed in Pennsylvania (PA License #PA078269), and the person who designs your project is the same person standing on your slope while it is built. Our shop on Poplars Road is a short drive away, so checking on a Valley View job is part of a normal day, not a special trip.
This neighborhood sits in the heart of our home territory. We also work in nearby Grantley, on the same rising ground south of the city, and down the road in Yoe, where the borough’s own hills give us many of the same problems to solve. You can find every town we cover on our service areas page.
Ready to put your Valley View slope to work?
Tell us what your hillside is doing wrong, and Rick will walk it with you, read the grade, and sketch what it could become. Call 717-578-9029, email mvgardens@live.com, or send the form below to set up your free consultation.
