New rock retaining wall

Back in April, we had contractors take out two rotting railroad tie walls, one in the front yard and the other across the back slope. In the front yard, we had them regrade the slope, and the shape of the new front hillside is so much nicer without a wall.

In the back, a retaining wall is necessary so we had the railroad ties replaced with a rock wall, leaving in place a lower concrete wall. Here's what we started with:

Looking north

Steps, looking south

Looking south from above

In less than a day (and pouring rain at the end), we had a new rock wall!

Looking north

Looking south, where the steps were

I really love the rock wall, but we had two problems to deal with. There used to be steps on the north side, and I wanted that replaced with a ramp, but I wasn't paying enough attention to where they placed the rocks (working from home and supervising contractors doesn't always mix well). The ramp ended up going down the slope, which is way too steep, instead of across.

We thought it would be pretty easy to move that middle rock. Well, it took pry bars and a car jack, but we did it with no serious injuries!

The rock in the middle needed to go

Finally got the rock moved from the middle to the left side

The second difficulty was that the rock wall is taller than the railroad ties so needed more material to fill in behind it. I had them scrape fill from the hillside above it, but that left too much of a drop off in the slope.

Drop off along the edge of the grass

We decided to dig up the remaining grass in the middle so there wouldn't be a difference on the slope, but did leave some grass on the sides. Then, we hauled in about 4 yards of topsoil to fill it all in evenly. The grass on the sides is mowed very short and covered with a thin layer of topsoil, we're basically overseeding it.
Now I'm ready to plant a mix of grass, clover and yarrow, just waiting for the weather to cool down!

Looking north

Looking south from above

The area below the retaining walls is also ready to re-seed, with an eco turf mix that also contains flowers. We didn't do as much prep work, just hauled in about a yard of topsoil to fill in the biggest ruts. This was heavily compacted by the excavator because all of the wall work was done from below. It may take some time to recover, but it's not a priority right now, we'll see how well re-seeding works. 

Looking south

You may notice the plants lined up along the top of the wall too, I'm planning a drought tolerant border there. More to follow once I actually plant!