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Posted by Stubby on November 21, 2007, 7:30 pm
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>
> 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
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