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Help!

Sigster

2006-02-01, 10:21 am

Ok guys,here`s my problem. Ive moved into a brand new house which
unfortunately has had nothing done to the back area. Its just a mess of
earth and bricks at the moment. I want to turn it into a lawn but its
not as simple as just removing all the rubble. The earth is clay.
Heavily clay and really retains the water badly. Having viewed some of
my neighbours back gardens its obvious all some of them have done is
turfed on top of the clay and what rain we have had has really messed
up their (once) pristine lawns. Ive got a few ideas around removing
some clay, and adding topsoil but would be interested to hear what
other ideas people have particularly considering any drainage issues.

--
Sigster

Kyle Boatright

2006-02-01, 11:21 pm

How much time/money can you invest? Seriously???

The obvious answer would be to remove the debris, till the soil deeply, add
several inches of amendments (topsoil, compost, etc), and till that in.

Since a cubic yard only covers 108 square feet at 3" deep, it would take
quite a few cubic yards of amendments to "fix" even a modest sized area...

If you're in it for the long haul and have the resources to undertake a
major project, you'd probably be happy over the long term.

If not, cover the area with mulch and forget it. Halfway measures (like
adding a 1/2" amendment layer) really don't help much. The good thing about
mulch is that if you're still there in 10 years, all the repeat mulchings
will have turned the soil into good material...

KB

"Sigster" <Sigster.22k080@gardenbanter.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Sigster.22k080@gardenbanter.co.uk...
>
> Ok guys,here`s my problem. Ive moved into a brand new house which
> unfortunately has had nothing done to the back area. Its just a mess of
> earth and bricks at the moment. I want to turn it into a lawn but its
> not as simple as just removing all the rubble. The earth is clay.
> Heavily clay and really retains the water badly. Having viewed some of
> my neighbours back gardens its obvious all some of them have done is
> turfed on top of the clay and what rain we have had has really messed
> up their (once) pristine lawns. Ive got a few ideas around removing
> some clay, and adding topsoil but would be interested to hear what
> other ideas people have particularly considering any drainage issues.
>
>
> --
> Sigster

Timothy

2006-02-02, 1:21 pm

On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 13:29:13 +0000, Sigster wrote:

>
> Ok guys,here`s my problem. Ive moved into a brand new house which
> unfortunately has had nothing done to the back area. Its just a mess of
> earth and bricks at the moment. I want to turn it into a lawn but its not
> as simple as just removing all the rubble. The earth is clay. Heavily clay
> and really retains the water badly. Having viewed some of my neighbours
> back gardens its obvious all some of them have done is turfed on top of
> the clay and what rain we have had has really messed up their (once)
> pristine lawns. Ive got a few ideas around removing some clay, and adding
> topsoil but would be interested to hear what other ideas people have
> particularly considering any drainage issues.

Good day Sigster. We deal with this issue alot where I'm at. We call them
a "rape and scrape" development. Developers come in, rip all the trees
down and sell the lumber and scrape away all the soil and sell it to the
soil re-sellers. The new home owner is left with a barren lot that has
very poor landscaping and an ever worse out-look for furture plantings.

Kyle offered good advice on the soil ammending. I would suggest that
before any landscaping is done, make sure your drainage issues are
settled. Very few things in this world costs as much as moving dirt. No
need to move it twice.

Do all your gutters drain on to the ground or into hard pipes? If you live
in a wet area (like western washington}, you will want to pipe that water
away from your foundation. Hard piping isn't very expensive, just alot of
digging.

Do you have surface water on your property during or after a rain? Is this
water near your foundation or pooling in your lawn/yard areas? Then you
may want to look into a curtain drain, dry well, rain garden or some other
way of moving or locally dealing with the water. If this isn't dealt with,
no matter how much soil you add, you'll never get a successful landscape
and the over all lifespan of your house may be shorten.

After you deal with your under lying drainage issues, then you can start
to wrap your head around soil/planting issues. It may not be practial to
plant your shrubs and trees into the ammended clay soil. I find it best,
many times, to ammend the soil then lay a berm of bought soil to plant
into. This will healp greatly with root rot issues that you may find.

If you have more questions, feel free to give us a shout, we'll be here.

--
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