Lawn and Garden forum - Preparation advice for turfing on clay ground

Author

Preparation advice for turfing on clay ground

TallAndy

2007-11-20, 9:25 pm

Hi all

I'm after some advice on the best way to prepare heavy clay soil for
turfing.

The back garden is approx 36ft wide (level in this direction), and 30ft
long - sloping downhill away from the house (overall approx 2ft drop).
Over the last 4-5 weekends I've been levelling it into terraces, and
now it looks like this (starting nearest the house):-

- First 6ft will eventually be paved
- then 1ft drop onto lawn area (will eventually have a retaining wall)
- Approx 15ft of lawn
- further 1ft drop onto barked area

I've got the lawn area level, but in the process I've dug out most of
the topsoil from the "high part" nearest the house, and used it to fill
up the "low part" of the lawn area to get it level. Where I've removed
this topsoil I've hit red/brown clay, which runs in a strip the full
width of the garden - approx 1-2ft wide at one end, but more like 4 ft
once you reach the other end. As you move away from the house the clay
layer slopes down, so the topsoil therefore gets deeper and is probably
a foot deep at the far end of the lawn area.
I've spread 2-3 inches of topsoil back over the clay, but after any
rain we see a lot of small puddles on this area of the ground, and
walking on it feels like quicksand in places.

I've read various articles on what's best, these include:

- rotavating in grit sand, but needs huge amounts to make a difference
- £££s!
- create soakaways, but I've read that they silt up and aren't worth
the effort
- just turf it, then aerate and topdress with sand each year
- spread 2 inches of "turfing sand" on the ground then lay turf onto
that (never found out what turfing sand is!)

I also read an article on this site about putting drainage along the
top edge of the lawn to stop water from higher ground ever reaching it
in the first place. This makes sense, but will it help in my situation?
The highest terrace (nearest the house) is only 6ft wide, so I can't see
there being that much water coming from up there? If I do go with this
drainage idea, what sort of drain is best?

After the jubilation of finishing the garden levelling (by hand!), I'm
starting to get disheartened after seeing it turn into mush with the
recent rain! Or am I worrying unnecessarily - we wouldn't go out into
the garden at this time of year? We've only been in the house a few
months so what would we expect in the summer - will we have the
opposite problem of having the ground turn to concrete instead?

So many questions! Thanks in advance

Andy

--
TallAndy

Stubby

2007-11-21, 8:25 pm

Read up on gypsum. It is supposed to break up clay.

"TallAndy" <TallAndy.1b94ff9@gardenbanter.co.uk> wrote in message
news:TallAndy.1b94ff9@gardenbanter.co.uk...
>
> Hi all
>
> I'm after some advice on the best way to prepare heavy clay soil for
> turfing.
>
> The back garden is approx 36ft wide (level in this direction), and 30ft
> long - sloping downhill away from the house (overall approx 2ft drop).
> Over the last 4-5 weekends I've been levelling it into terraces, and
> now it looks like this (starting nearest the house):-
>
> - First 6ft will eventually be paved
> - then 1ft drop onto lawn area (will eventually have a retaining wall)
> - Approx 15ft of lawn
> - further 1ft drop onto barked area
>
> I've got the lawn area level, but in the process I've dug out most of
> the topsoil from the "high part" nearest the house, and used it to fill
> up the "low part" of the lawn area to get it level. Where I've removed
> this topsoil I've hit red/brown clay, which runs in a strip the full
> width of the garden - approx 1-2ft wide at one end, but more like 4 ft
> once you reach the other end. As you move away from the house the clay
> layer slopes down, so the topsoil therefore gets deeper and is probably
> a foot deep at the far end of the lawn area.
> I've spread 2-3 inches of topsoil back over the clay, but after any
> rain we see a lot of small puddles on this area of the ground, and
> walking on it feels like quicksand in places.
>
> I've read various articles on what's best, these include:
>
> - rotavating in grit sand, but needs huge amounts to make a difference
> - £££s!
> - create soakaways, but I've read that they silt up and aren't worth
> the effort
> - just turf it, then aerate and topdress with sand each year
> - spread 2 inches of "turfing sand" on the ground then lay turf onto
> that (never found out what turfing sand is!)
>
> I also read an article on this site about putting drainage along the
> top edge of the lawn to stop water from higher ground ever reaching it
> in the first place. This makes sense, but will it help in my situation?
> The highest terrace (nearest the house) is only 6ft wide, so I can't see
> there being that much water coming from up there? If I do go with this
> drainage idea, what sort of drain is best?
>
> After the jubilation of finishing the garden levelling (by hand!), I'm
> starting to get disheartened after seeing it turn into mush with the
> recent rain! Or am I worrying unnecessarily - we wouldn't go out into
> the garden at this time of year? We've only been in the house a few
> months so what would we expect in the summer - will we have the
> opposite problem of having the ground turn to concrete instead?
>
>
> So many questions! Thanks in advance
>
> Andy
>
>
>
>
> --
> TallAndy

2007-11-29, 5:25 pm

On Nov 20, 6:05 pm, TallAndy <TallAndy.1b94...@gardenbanter.co.uk>
wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I'm after some advice on the best way to prepare heavy clay soil for
> turfing.
>
> The back garden is approx 36ft wide (level in this direction), and 30ft
> long - sloping downhill away from the house (overall approx 2ft drop).
> Over the last 4-5 weekends I've been levelling it into terraces, and
> now it looks like this (starting nearest the house):-
>
> - First 6ft will eventually be paved
> - then 1ft drop onto lawn area (will eventually have a retaining wall)
> - Approx 15ft of lawn
> - further 1ft drop onto barked area
>
> I've got the lawn area level, but in the process I've dug out most of
> the topsoil from the "high part" nearest the house, and used it to fill
> up the "low part" of the lawn area to get it level. Where I've removed
> this topsoil I've hit red/brown clay, which runs in a strip the full
> width of the garden - approx 1-2ft wide at one end, but more like 4 ft
> once you reach the other end. As you move away from the house the clay
> layer slopes down, so the topsoil therefore gets deeper and is probably
> a foot deep at the far end of the lawn area.
> I've spread 2-3 inches of topsoil back over the clay, but after any
> rain we see a lot of small puddles on this area of the ground, and
> walking on it feels like quicksand in places.
>
> I've read various articles on what's best, these include:
>
> - rotavating in grit sand, but needs huge amounts to make a difference
> - =A3=A3=A3s!
> - create soakaways, but I've read that they silt up and aren't worth
> the effort
> - just turf it, then aerate and topdress with sand each year
> - spread 2 inches of "turfing sand" on the ground then lay turf onto
> that (never found out what turfing sand is!)
>
> I also read an article on this site about putting drainage along the
> top edge of the lawn to stop water from higher ground ever reaching it
> in the first place. This makes sense, but will it help in my situation?
> The highest terrace (nearest the house) is only 6ft wide, so I can't see
> there being that much water coming from up there? If I do go with this
> drainage idea, what sort of drain is best?
>
> After the jubilation of finishing the garden levelling (by hand!), I'm
> starting to get disheartened after seeing it turn into mush with the
> recent rain! Or am I worrying unnecessarily - we wouldn't go out into
> the garden at this time of year? We've only been in the house a few
> months so what would we expect in the summer - will we have the
> opposite problem of having the ground turn to concrete instead?
>
> So many questions! Thanks in advance
>
> Andy
>
> --
> TallAndy

Gypsum as the guy said, sometimes works, but it's most likely if the
soil is held together by excess salt. There's a few web pages about
it.

To my experience, mixing sand with clay doesn't break up the clay so
much as it generates concrete.

I've not found any better fix than mixing in large quantities of
compost, or compost like material. LARGE quantities. A friend of mine
had fantastic results just going outside the fence into the woods and
bringing back weelbarrow after wheelbarrow of leaf litter uncomposted
and digging it in like 2-3 feet deep. I wouldn't have guessed the
uncomposted stuff would have worked, but it did.

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