Guide to Garden Steps: How to Build Garden Steps

Garden steps are a perfect way to enhance your landscaping, so we’ve created this guide to help you best enjoy their aesthetic and practical benefits. Including design options, the best materials for garden steps, how to build garden steps, and ongoing maintenance tips to keep your garden stairs stylish and safe. Discover how garden steps elevate an outdoor space with our paving and landscaping advice.

Why Install Garden Steps?

Outdoor steps play a pivotal role in garden design, elevating both its aesthetic charm and functionality. They act as a pathway, guiding guests through the garden while providing support and a structure that helps organise and define the space. Steps can also be a brilliant solution for navigating slopes, stairs or uneven terrain, ensuring safer and easier mobility.

Furthermore, integrating steps into your landscape design opens up the possibility of showcasing different levels and perspectives of your garden, enhancing its visual appeal. They can be integrated into various garden styles, from modern, minimalist designs to rustic, cottage-style gardens, with materials like stone, porcelain, brick, or wood influencing the overall look and feel. Ultimately, outdoor steps can act as a critical design element, embodying form and function to enrich your garden experience.

Our Sales and Operations Director, Andy McLaughlin, says:

‘Steps can not only be functional but can be an integral piece of the design of the garden. Using matching products can literally elevate the garden to another level (pun intended). Whether it is a traditional hand-cut finish that is required or a more contemporary bullnosed edge, sawn and shot blasted look, having steps made out of the same material as the paving, creates a harmonious look throughout the outdoor space.’

Styles of Garden Steps and Their Benefits

Garden steps are available in a range of elegant styles, each with their own advantages in terms of appearance and practicality.

What Are Bullnosed Steps?

Bullnose steps have a charming rounded edge. This isn’t only visually appealing but also a wonderful safety feature, ensuring edges aren’t sharp and reducing the risk of injury from slips and falls. The soft and neat edges are ideal for a peaceful and tranquil garden.

What are Drop Edge Steps?

Drop edge steps, similar to bullnose steps, are beneficial in terms of safety. The edge of these steps drops down vertically, providing a pronounced profile. This gives a clear visual distinction between each step and a sleek finish, perfect for a modern garden.

Curved Garden Steps

Curved garden steps are graceful and elegant, perfect for a grand garden staircase. These steps are rounded off into a semicircle, creating a spiral appearance as they descend. The circular shape also gives an illusion of space and a palatial look that lends itself beautifully to a Mediterranean garden.  

Sleeper Garden Steps

One unique garden step design is to build them from layered sleepers, filled with multicoloured aggregate. These are incredibly rustic, especially with repurposed sleepers or sleepers made from organic materials, such as oak. 

Brick Garden Steps

Building garden steps from bricks offers a smart garden step look with intriguing patterning. It also makes it easier to customise the size and shape of your steps.

For more options on garden step styles to choose from, we have 38 garden step ideas to inspire you.

What Material is Best for Garden Steps?

When selecting a material for your garden steps, you should consider both how the appearance will complement your garden aesthetic and which material will be safest in terms of preventing slips. 

Sandstone Garden Steps

Sandstone garden steps are naturally slip-resistant due to their porous surface, as sandstone is formed from grains of sand cemented together over millions of years. As a natural stone, they’re durable, strong and weather-resistant for long-lasting and low maintenance steps.

Sandstone’s natural variation in colour and patterning also means you have a wealth of choice when it comes to selecting steps that will best enhance your space. See our ultimate sandstone guide to learn more about the benefits of this material. 

Porcelain Garden Steps

Porcelain is a stunning material for garden steps, offering classic beauty and practicality. The surface is textured for slip resistance, and the material is also resistant to staining, scratching, mould and frost. 

Porcelain can also offer a range of patterns and colours to suit your garden’s unique style. Discover our porcelain guide for more information on this paving type. 

What Size Should Garden Steps Be?

There are two key dimensions to garden step sizing. The rise, which refers to the height of each step, and the tread, which refers to the horizontal width of each step. 

28cm is the recommended minimum tread for an outdoor step, while the rise should be 17cm as a maximum. 

How Wide Should Garden Steps Be? 

The width of your garden steps depends on your needs and the space you have available in your garden. Wider steps can provide a sense of grandeur, while narrow and petite steps are ideal for small and rustic spaces. 

How to Build Garden Steps?

Garden steps are best installed by a trained professional. Find a landscaper near you with our directory of trusted tradespeople. 

Choosing the Right Location for Your Outdoor Steps

When pinpointing the steps’ placement, consider factors such as the garden’s natural topography, the presence of existing features, and the desired flow of movement.

Equally important is the steps’ orientation regarding sunlight and shade, which can affect the durability of materials used and ease of maintenance. Thoughtful location selection can enhance your outdoor steps’ functionality and visual appeal, contributing to the overall vertical height of your front yard and a well-integrated garden design.

How to Build Garden Steps on a Slope

In a sloping grass or garden, the steps should ideally follow the gradient of the planting to facilitate easy and safe navigation between plantings. On flatter terrains, steps can be used as decorative elements or to transition between different garden levels. It’s crucial to ensure that the chosen location to build garden steps doesn’t interfere with underground utilities or disrupt the root systems of mature plants.

What Tools are Needed to Build Garden Steps?

Materials:

• Paving slabs for steps
• Gravel or crushed rock for the base
• Sand
• Landscape fabric (optional but recommended)
• Landscaping adhesive (if using bricks or stones)

Tools:

• Shovel
• Wheelbarrow
• Spirit level
• Tamper or plate compactor
• Rubber mallet
• Tape measure
• Safety gear (gloves, safety glasses)

• How to Plan for Garden Steps

Assess the Area: Look over your garden and choose a suitable location for the steps. Consider the slope of the land and decide on the number of steps required. Mark the path where the steps will be placed, ensuring it’s straight and level.

Measure and Mark: Use stakes and string to mark the path of the steps. Measure the distance between each step to ensure even spacing.

• Excavating for Garden Steps

Clear the Area: Remove plants, roots, rocks, or debris from the path where the steps will be placed.

Excavate the Soil: Use a shovel to dig out the soil along the marked path to the desired depth. Ensure the excavation is level from side to side and slightly sloping from front to back for proper drainage.

• Preparing the Base for Garden Steps

Add Gravel Base: Fill the excavated area with compacted gravel or crushed rock layer. Aim for a thickness of about 4 to 6 inches.

Compact the Base: Use a tamper or plate compactor to compact the gravel base firmly. This creates a stable foundation for your garden steps.

Install Landscape Fabric (optional): Lay landscape fabric over the compacted gravel to prevent weed growth and enhance stability.

• Building Garden Steps

If using concrete blocks or timber:

Position the first step material at the bottom of the slope, ensuring it is level and aligned with the marked path. Place the second step directly on top of the first, ensuring a level surface. Repeat this process for each step, using a level and rubber mallet to adjust the height and alignment as needed.

If using bricks or stones:

Mix landscaping adhesive according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Apply a thin adhesive layer on the bottom of each brick or stone before placing it on the compacted base. Press each brick or stone firmly into place, ensuring they are level and evenly spaced.

• Laying Garden Steps

Mix the adhesive and spread this on the base of your first step before laying the first tread stone. Tap into place with a rubber mallet and ensure it is straight with a spirit level.

Then use mortar on the vertical part of the step where your riser will be laid, applying primer to the back of your riser. Ensure this is level, and then repeat until all steps are laid.  Fill any gaps with mortar to keep the steps secure. 

Do Garden Steps Need a Handrail?

While handrails aren’t mandatory for garden steps, they are advised as a safety feature to reduce slip risk. Handrails are particularly helpful in icy weather, as well as for keeping your garden more accessible for those with mobility issues.

How to Maintain Garden Steps?

Maintaining garden steps is about preserving their aesthetics and keeping them safe. This means removing algae, moss, and mould that may be slippery.

Sweep your steps regularly during seasons when debris risk is high, as autumn leaves can cause staining as they decompose.  

You can wash your stairs to remove staining with stone cleaners or porcelain cleaners, depending on the material of your stairs. Our paving maintenance guide can give you further advice.

At RF Paving, we offer natural stone and porcelain steps in bullnose and drop-edge styles. Explore our range of steps to choose the perfect match for your landscaping.

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