Question
Thank you in advance for any guidance you can give us!  We have a 50-60 yr old house which is 2-1/2' higher than our western neighbor.  Currently this is a east-west sloped area where the grass has finally been shaded out by their beautiful live oak which is 20' from the north-south property line.  The property also slopes north-south.  We don't want the remaining soil to wash away and are planning to build a retaining wall with pavestone-type blocks.  The distance from our driveway to the property line is 6'. Can we successfully tier the retaining wall into the north-south slope and across the east-west slope or do we have to dig down the entire 2-1/2' depth and make a solid retaining wall? Our soil is primarily sandy loam, with clay about 3" below the surface.

Answer
Difficult to tell from how you described it.  2-1/2 feet isn't that much of a grade difference, and with 6 feet to work with, and I think you can successfully make an attractive 搕iered?or 搒tair-stepped?retaining wall.  Pavestone is  a fine product, and I think their website also has great examples (www.pavestone.com).

Here are a few images of the situation that I think you are describing:

http://www.coloradolandscapedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/Siloam-Stone-R...

http://img.diynetwork.com/DIY/2009/05/22/0038963D4_retaining-wall_cw522_lg.jpg

http://www.diylife.com/photos/how-to-build-an-engineered-retaining-wall/690554/

http://www.gtpine.com.au/gallery/full/Project%20Ideas_Retaining%20Wall.jpg

(Imagine the height a lot less on this example) http://www.landscapenetwork.com/topics/images/drvywall.jpg

(with large boulders)
http://www.onlinetips.org/images/retaining-wall.gif


Sorry for all the links, but I am, at heart, a "visual" person so examples help me to convey design ideas.  ~M